


The Serpent and the Storm

by flamethrower



Series: Innocuous Juxtapositions Outside of Time and Space [5]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Assorted Ducks - Freeform, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Celestial Angst, Demisexual Angels, Divergent Timelines, Don't copy to another site, Extra-DImensional Fuckery, F/F, F/M, Family, GFY, Genderfluid Character, Genderqueer Character, History, M/M, Magic, Mischief, Multi, No Betas We Screw Up Like Aziraphale, Other, PTSD, Platonic Love, Platonic Relationships, Post-Canon, Post-Season/Series 11, Queer Relationships, Sentient TARDIS, Team TARDIS, The Author Doesn't like Sad Endings, Time Loop, Time Lord Angst, Time Lords and Ladies, Time Shenanigans, Time Travel, Wine as a coping mechanism, aliens in london, cats and dogs living together, gender is meaningless, i believe in you, ineffable husbands
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2020-08-13 06:09:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 41
Words: 340,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20169421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flamethrower/pseuds/flamethrower
Summary: Donna Noble runs into a familiar face while out and about in Knightsbridge--literally. It shouldn't have been enough to nudge a meta-crisis into reactivating itself, but some things are just ineffable.Everything spirals completely out of control from there, and Crowley blames Israfil for all of it--and also that complete idiot running around with their face.





	1. Burning Secrets

**Author's Note:**

> I just couldn't _not_ do the thing, okay?? I'M SOFT.
> 
> (Ratings or Tags may/will change as the fic progresses.)

Thursday, 21st May 2020

It starts around two o’clock, and nothing that happens that afternoon is Crowley’s fault in the slightest. He can say this with absolute certainty because he was in his rooftop garden at the time, head tilted back on the concrete, asleep in his own pool.

It was Israfil’s fault, but that wouldn’t be Crowley’s concern for another five minutes.

Crowley wakes up to footsteps and opens his eyes to find Aziraphale staring down at him. “What are you doing?” Aziraphale asks.

“What’s the point of having my own pool in my own greenhouse if I don’t use it?”

“Er, well, nothing.” Aziraphale is flushing that delightful shade of pink again. “I suppose I expected more clothing to be involved, though Heavens know why I would expect modesty from you at all.”

Crowley snorts and lifts his head, stretching out a mild kink in his neck. “Greece. Rome. Japan. Among others.”

“Those were entirely different cultures, my dear.” Aziraphale lingers near the tangerine tree long enough to pluck one of the ripe tangerines from its branches. It’s technically too soon for a tree of that age to bear fruit, but Crowley cheated and gave everything in the greenhouse a bit of a nudge. “Also, I would not put it past you to have decided to lounge up here in the nude merely because you knew I would blush.”

Crowley grins. “Would I do that?”

Aziraphale lets out the sigh of the long-suffering, but there is bright fondness in his eyes. “Of course, absolutely—good Heavens.” Aziraphale swallows hard when Crowley abruptly stands up, realizes he forgot a towel, and miracles one into his hand from the linens cupboard downstairs.

“You’re right, I would,” Crowley agrees, slinging the towel around his waist. “Now if I could just convince you to use the pool.”

“Yes, but you said there could be no contaminants on the skin, clothing included, or it might damage the plants,” Aziraphale protests. “You also swore to me that you were being honest about that.”

“I was.” Plants are sensitive that way. Sort of like fish, but fish are bastards who like to die just to spite you.

“Yes, that’s…the difficulty, then.” Aziraphale resolutely looks away from Crowley, which is frustrating. “I’m not exactly in the best physical condition.”

“If you really think I give a fuck about whatever physical lack you’re concerned about, you have gone completely bloody daft.”

“No, but it bothers me. A bit,” Aziraphale admits, and then looks angry about it. “I know that it _shouldn’t_. I am a celestial being, and this is just a corporation, a mere representation of who I am. But—it does. Bother me.”

Crowley shakes his head and steps out of the pool. It’s too shallow to be good for anything more than lounging, but that was the point. Being in this room as a serpent, basking in the sun while dipping his tail into the water, is better than Heaven. “Angel. I just—”

He means to say, _I don’t know how to convince you how beautiful you are_, but something stops him. He tilts his head, listening, and then dismisses the towel, replacing it a moment later with his clothes. “Bollocks, that’s timing for you. Something’s wrong.”

“What?” Aziraphale asks, following him straight out of the greenhouse. His angel has gotten rather prompt about responding to emergencies, fretting about it along the way instead of dithering first, but the Not-Apocalypse did give them plenty of practice.

“Not sure yet. Israfil is asking us to meet him in his flat.” Crowley reaches out a bit and then reels back. “Oh, that’s not going to be fun.”

* * * *

Israfil will readily admit that it is completely his fault, but he really isn’t that great at letting people die. He was literally made for healing, and it’s not like a switch he can just turn off at will. Zaherael handles the injured and the dying a lot better than Israfil does, but spending over six thousand years as a demon also made his brother…well, cynical.

He’s using the wireless ear-piece Zaherael introduced him to last autumn, paired with his mobile, but he finished his conversation with Ba‘al a few minutes ago. He immediately switched over to music, and the app called Pandora set to random has been, well—no pun intended—a revelation.

He slows his steps when one song begins to play, feeling gooseflesh (odd name, that) break out on his skin. He digs his mobile out of his pocket to check the listed musician, someone named Ruelle. He’s heard other songs by her on occasion, but not this one. This is different from everything else he’s heard since landing on Earth with Zaherael last year.

Music was the only thing he could manipulate in Purgatory in order to nudge Zaherael in the direction he needed to go, so Israfil knows a message when he hears it. This one is a warning.

That’s probably bad.

“_Everywhere I turn_

_Everything is changing_

_Secrets start to burn_

_Pieces rearranging._

_Everyone I knew_

_Have turned away their faces_

_I used to know the truth_

_But all the lies erased it._

_This could be the downfall_

_This could be the end of everything we are_

_This could be the downfall_

_It feels like the whole world’s tearing apart_

_This could be the downfall._”

Then a woman bumps into him, says, “Oi, excuse you, skinny!” and nearly knocks the mobile from his hand.

“Excuse you, too,” Israfil mutters. He pauses the app so he can freeze the artist and song in place to have another go at later. Then he realizes that he’s being stared at and lifts his head to glance over his shoulder. “What?”

The woman who bumped into him has Earth-traditional ginger hair and wide, shocked blue eyes. Human, maybe forty years old, radiating a sense of impending danger that sets off every mental alert Israfil has for dealing with another’s health.

“It’s—I know you. Don’t I know you?” she asks.

Israfil shoves his mobile back into his pocket. “I’ve never met you before in my life. Believe me, I’d remember. Why?”

“Because—you look like someone I know.” The woman bites her lip and looks distressed. “Don’t I? Yes, yes, I know I do, I did—did—did—did—did—”

Israfil darts over and catches her before she falls straight down on the walkway. “Oh, lovely. Uhm—tell me your name?” he asks as people nearby start to notice and press in around them. Gawkers. They’re worse than the bloody pigeons.

“Oi, mate, she looks like she needs a doctor!” someone suggests.

“I am a heal—a physician!” Israfil snaps back. “A doctor, all right? Back up!”

“You’re a doctor?” She gives him a very intent look that doesn’t disguise a sudden flare of golden light in her eyes. “I knew a doctor once, but not _a_ doctor, I knew a _the_ Doctor—”

“Name, your name, tell me your name,” Israfil insists, pouring a bit of magic into it. He’s never been fond of shouting random names at his patients until he stumbles over the correct one.

“Donna. Donna Temple-Noble—well, no, it’s just Noble again now,” she adds sadly. “I lost him last year, and my mum, and now it’s just me and Granddad again, and it’s not fair, and did you know your name is hidden in the Medusa Cascade?”

“No, my name is definitely _not _there,” Israfil replies. He’s starting to feel so alarmed that his wings are trying to present. Something is wrong here. Very, very wrong. “I’m Israfil. Nice to meet you—wait, how do you know about the Medusa Cascade? My brother made that, and it’s definitely not listed in any human astronomy books. Not with that name, anyway.”

“Because you’re—him. But you’re not him, you’re not the Doctor, you’re…” That flare of gold comes back into Donna Noble’s eyes, along with a strong rush of power that Israfil can feel beneath his hands.

“That’s…magic. No, biological…energy?” Israfil tries to sort through what he can feel, but it’s an odd mess. Magical biological energy? Whatever it is, it’s not human, it’s powerful, and it’s killing her. Great.

“Well, no, some of it’s going to be artron energy, ambient radiation, comes from the Time Vortex, gets all over your stuff and into your cells even if you’re just there for a quick jaunt, but you can measure it in atto—atto—atto—atto—atto—”

“Oh, fuck,” Israfil hisses under his breath. He spreads some of his influence about, making the surrounding gawker humans forget them both. “Sorry in advance, but I’m kidnapping you now, because I really don’t want you to die.”

“The Doctor doesn’t like to let people die either, it’s a thing, and it was atto-Omegas. That’s how you measure artron energy!” Donna exclaims, and then lets out an unhappy shriek when Israfil lifts her into his arms before he pulls his wings forth from the ether. “Oi, I can walk, spaceman!”

“I’m not a—what is—oh, just shut up for a minute, all right?” Israfil requests. “This might feel a bit weird, by the way.” Then he spreads his wings and pushes upward.

Donna screams in terror as they leave the walkway behind. “You can fly! You can bloody well fly!”

“Lucky you!” Israfil tries to shake the ringing out of his ears from her shouting. “This is what you get for finding me in Knightsbridge instead of bloody Soho!”

“Yeah, lucky, that’s me!” Donna’s death grip around his neck is loosening. “I haven’t been flying in years! Definitely not this way! How are you carrying me? You’re such a skinny twig that a good breeze would knock you over!”

“How did you fly before, what way were you flying, I’m stronger than I look, and the person I’m dating has absolutely zero issues with my body, _thank you_,” Israfil answers, rolling his eyes. The words are keeping her mind focused, and right now, that feels important.

“I flew in the TARDIS. It’s a spaceship, except actually it’s more like a one-point-in-time to the next-point-in-time ship without any limits on location, and the inside is a pocket dimension. It’s supposed to take eight people to fly it properly, but you can do it with just one if you’re bonkers,” Donna explains cheerfully, and then grimaces. “Oh, my head. My head really, really hurts.”

“Considering how much information you’re trying to spew out at once? I’m not the slightest bit surprised!”

Donna twists her head around. “How is it you have wings? Are you an alien? Oooh, I know of some alien races that have wings! They just didn’t have wings like that! Or look human. More like birds usually. Though there were also the blokes who looked like pugs but had wings, that was weird—”

“I’m not an alien!” Israfil interrupts, completely baffled. “I’m—okay, well, technically, I’m not human, and I’m not from Earth, but—no!”

“Then what are you?” Donna asks, looking politely interested in the answer.

“Uhm. Oh, there is probably a really good word for it, and I just don’t happen to know it. I was technically dead for a while until this past September, which is a long story.” Israfil shifts his wings so that he banks hard, then starts letting them circle back down to the ground. He’s on the wrong side of the bloody street from the building, but close enough. “We’re going to save that long story for when you’re not actively dying, all right?”

“Oh, I’m not dying—ow,” Donna whimpers as they land. “All right, maybe I’m in a spot of trouble.”

“Yes, dying is usually considered to be a problem.” Israfil darts across the street. Now he’s dividing his focus between keeping her brain from destroying itself by brainstorm or aneurism _and_ keeping the locals from noticing that there is an angel making off with a chatterbox. The moment he’s onto the stairs, out of Carol’s sight and past the gallery entrance, he releases some of the _ignore me_ magic and sends a thought straight to Zaherael, instead.

“Lovely place,” Donna comments, glancing around Israfil’s flat. “Your kitchen is entirely blue, by the way.”

“I like blue.” Israfil places Donna on the oversized chair next to the sofa. “You’re bleeding, by the way.” He searches his pockets, comes up scarce, and miracles a handkerchief out of the ether. “Hold this, right at your nose. Not a firm press, it’s not that sort of bleed,” he corrects. She’s starting to feel hot to the touch, a fire beginning to rage under her skin that is very much _not_ a fever.

“No, it’s not.” Donna begins crying. “I wasn’t supposed to remember. I hate that he did that to me, but he was just trying to help.”

“Who?”

“The Doctor!” Donna glares at him while weeping. “Haven’t you paid attention to a thing I’ve said?”

“Mostly I’m just trying to understand you, and also, I’m still very much concerned with that dying bit you’re trying to pull on me.” Israfil looks back at her eyes again. “Gold. Your eyes are glowing with gold energy. What is that?”

“It’s just—just—just—”

“That’s not really helpful. Also, that’s not a good sign.” Israfil shoves his index finger into the middle of her forehead and puts her to sleep before things get any worse. “Oh, bollocks. How the hell am I going to fix this? You’re my first species cock-up, Donna Noble.”

Zaherael enters the flat just moments later, followed by Aziraphale. “What, you’ve started kidnapping people?” Zaherael asks in displeasure.

“Only when they bump into me, accuse me of being someone else, then accuse me of being an alien, and oh, also, try to die on me for reasons I’m really not sure I can figure out.” Israfil picks up her arm, holds her hand, and closes his eyes for a moment. “Where did she get this energy from?”

“Energy?” Zaherael comes closer, sliding off his sunglasses once he realizes that Donna is unconscious. “What sort of energy?”

“Ms. Donna Noble here was sort of out of it, so I’m not certain. She mentioned artron energy, time vortexes, the Medusa Cascade, and a doctor. She is full of some sort of inhuman energy that doesn’t belong, and it’s literally killing her.”

“What? Why? I mean, how did she come to be wandering about with something like that?” Aziraphale asks. “That’s rather an odd thing for a human to just stumble over. Unless—is she Nephilim?”

“No,” Zaherael answers at once. “She’s too short, for one thing, but…no. This feels different.”

“The really odd part is that I’m almost certain she was perfectly fine until she saw my face,” Israfil says. “Oh, this is _really_ not human, whatever it is. She said this doctor fellow made her forget so she would be all right, so…why my face?”

“Maybe you look like him,” Zaherael suggests, picking up Donna’s other hand. He flinches at once. “Alien. Definitely alien.”

Aziraphale makes a frustrated sound. “Seriously, my dear, how many aliens do you know?”

“Probably more than I should, but London seems to attract them,” Zaherael says. “Like the bloody giant roaming pepper pots with lasers that no one else remembers back in autumn 2009. Remember that?”

Aziraphale retrieves Donna’s purse and opens it. “I do hate to pry, but maybe something in here will explain things. Oh, and much like having to experience the year 2008 twice, yes, of course I remember that. I simply try not to think about it. I’d rather keep track of how things are, not how they were.”

“Wait. There was an invasion of giant roaming alien pepper pots, and no one remembers it?” Israfil asks in disbelief.

“Yeah.” Zaherael is acting as if he’s developing a dire headache. “Some wanker decided to reboot Time in this part of the universe in 1996, for…reasons. I don’t know. I didn’t really want to know, had enough problems of my own at the time. It means that Zira and I can remember two different timelines. The one we’re in right now, in which almost no one remembers that aliens have invaded or attacked London a truly ludicrous number of times, and the other one, in which things were…well, aliens were on their way to being a globally recognized reality. Then, reboot, and now we’re back to conspiracy theories and nonsense.”

“Crowley, you look abysmal,” Aziraphale notes in a fretful tone. “What’s wrong?”

“The energy isn’t really the problem, it’s just not helping. It’s her head. There are two distinct minds inside her skull, and they melded when they shouldn’t have. That’s what’s wrong.” Zaherael tilts his head until his neck pops. “Ow. Better. There’s an ethereal hint to the alien energy bit. It’s not anything blatant, it’s just…background noise.”

“Minds are more your specialty than mine,” Israfil says. “I can keep her alive while you fix the consciousness problem.”

“Not actually sure I _can_ fix it.” Zaherael reaches up long enough to pinch the bridge of his nose without releasing Donna’s hand. “This has been settled for a while—oh, hey. Yeah, definitely it was your face that set off the problem. From what I can see in her head, that man _really_ looks like you. Looks like both of us, really. He’s just not ginger.”

Aziraphale smiles. “I don’t think the universe could cope if three of you existed at once.”

“Pfft.” Zaherael makes a disgruntled face. “Oh, that is regret. That is so much regret. He really didn’t want to—this wasn’t supposed to happen to her, except it did, but he hated it.”

“Zaherael.” Israfil reaches out and grips his brother’s wrist. “You’re out of practice. Don’t get lost.”

“I’m not lost. There’s just—there’s so much. Nine hundred years of too much from a more highly evolved brain. No wonder it’s killing her; it doesn’t fit.” Zaherael shakes his head. “Move over. I need both hands, her head, and for you to make sure I don’t fucking well wander off. Oh, and drain off some of that energy, if you can. It wants to build up and do…something, but it’s not helping a bloody thing.”

Zaherael and Israfil change positions so Zaherael can kneel in front of the chair, his hands resting on both sides of Donna’s slack face. Israfil keeps one hand on his brother’s shoulder while trying to draw forth that alien glowing energy with his other. “There’s quite a bit of this,” Israfil mutters. “What should I do with it?”

“Fling it off into the air. Who cares? Shut up, I’m working.”

Aziraphale leans in close to Israfil. “I’ve never seen him do this before,” he murmurs. “I didn’t realize the two of you had…well, specialties.”

“We can both do either,” Israfil replies quietly, trying to shake that clingy golden energy off of his hand. It drifts into the air like a cloud, but it is, at least, slowly dispersing. “But I prefer physical means of healing. He just liked to fuck with people’s heads.”

Aziraphale lets out a faint laugh. “That hasn’t changed in the slightest.”

“I can hear you two idiots just fine,” Zaherael snaps without opening his eyes. “There’s a trick to this.”

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s this _meshing_,” Zaherael complains, baring his teeth at whatever he’s prodding at. “I need to remove one entire consciousness, but so much of what this alien bloke knew is wrapped up in who she is now. Trying to take chunks of that out without taking _her_ out is not any fun at all. Bloody wankers from Kasterborous! This is what happens when too many populated systems share the same stupid constellation!”

“That doesn’t sound like your work,” Israfil comments, drawing forth another cloud of the alien energy. Zaherael is right; he can feel the faintest hint of etherealness to it, which is what threw him off when Donna first started to fall apart. There isn’t any sense of direction to it, or even a recognized awareness. It’s just…there. “Did someone give these ‘wankers’ access to our magic?”

“Not that I know of. Wouldn’t be much surprised, though. Sometimes Saraquel gets odd ideas into his head—fuck!” Zaherael keeps his hands in place even as he bends over, his back arching in pain. “I can feel that, I can feel her dying, I can hear that consciousness _screaming_!”

Aziraphale swears under his breath and then grips Zaherael’s opposite shoulder. “Ms. Noble, you mean?”

“No! No, this is something else, and she’s so very old, but it doesn’t matter, and—oh, oh, I’ve got it!” Zaherael grins. “HAH! Fuck you, you utter bastards!”

Zaherael pulls his hands back, but he’s dragging forth a massive amount of golden energy. The strength Israfil can sense of it is literally staggering. “Can’t get it all, but this will be enough. She’ll live. I wouldn’t want to be the man who did this to her, though, because she is really angry!” He pulls the last of that golden mass free and then tosses it up into the air. “Fuck off!”

Zaherael is still staring up in vicious success at that massive cloud of energy when Donna snaps awake. She sees Zaherael kneeling in front of her and slaps him so hard across the face that Zaherael goes tumbling over backwards. “YOU COMPLETE BASTARD!”

“Uh—okay, that was actually funny, but please don’t do that again,” Israfil says as Zaherael shouts, “WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT FOR?”

“BECAUSE—” Donna breaks off, stares at Israfil, and then glances down at Zaherael. Israfil’s brother is still on the carpet, clasping his hand to the side of his face. The skin beneath his hand is turning a rather spectacular shade of red. “But…wait. You’re not…you’re not him.”

“NO!” Zaherael pushes himself back upright. “Bollocks, woman, that isn’t how you thank people for saving your arse!” He stretches his jaw and winces. “Did you just loosen my teeth?”

“I’m…” Donna looks back up at Israfil, who raises both eyebrows. Then she glances at Aziraphale, who smiles and waves. “What’s going on here?”

“I’m Israfil, we met in Knightsbridge, and then you promptly started dying on me,” Israfil explains. “My brother just saved your life, as you were being overwhelmed by one consciousness too many. Then you slapped him for it.”

“I’m Aziraphale,” Aziraphale introduces himself. “Would you like tea?”

Donna glances back down at Zaherael, who still looks completely offended. “Uh—yeah. A spot of tea would be…that would be lovely.”

“Excellent!” Aziraphale goes directly to the kitchen, probably to have something to do that isn’t giving in to the urge to ask as many questions as possible.

“I’m…er…I’m sorry,” Donna finally manages, though she still seems incredibly baffled by Zaherael. “It’s just that you look exactly like him.”

Zaherael glares at her and then points at his eyes with two of his fingers. “DO THESE EYES LOOK HUMAN TO YOU?”

Donna peers closer. “No, they really don’t. I really like them, though. I’m just—you even style your bloody _hair_ the same, all right? I opened my eyes, and I can suddenly remember most things, and there he’s sitting and…” She winces. “Sorry about your teeth.”

Zaherael gives her one more glare and then his hand takes on a brief glow. “No harm done,” he says as he fixes the damage. “Mostly. You hit bloody hard, you know that, right?”

Donna beams. “Thanks, sunshine—oh, wait, sorry, I should probably not call you that. I’d get the two of you mixed up again, and it just seems best not to chance that. What’s your name?”

“Crowley,” Zaherael insists, giving Israfil a nudge without looking in his direction. Israfil resists the urge to roll his eyes; he has very much learned his lesson about calling Crowley by the wrong name in front of people who are not Aziraphale or God.

“Crowley. Like that Aleister Crowley fellow?” Donna asks.

“No! For one thing, that dead man’s real name was actually Edward, and for another, my name has been Crowley longer than Christianity has existed, so if anything, he fucking stole it,” Zaherael retorts.

“No, the Gaeils stole it first, dear,” Aziraphale says from the kitchen. “How do you take your tea, Ms. Noble?”

“Oh—Donna’s…Donna’s fine,” she murmurs, her shock beginning to fade into thoughtfulness. Israfil can catch hints of what’s going on in her head from her eyes, and it’s a complicated mess in there. She’s highly intelligent, with parts of someone else’s exceptional level of knowledge filling the cracks. Donna is experienced enough to put things together if she gives herself a moment. “Two sugars and milk, would you please? I don’t think I could handle black tea right now. Might sick it right back up.”

Aziraphale nods. “Already done. Crowley?”

“Put alcohol in mine.” Zaherael thumps back down and spreads out on Israfil’s rug in a sprawl of limbs. “It’s not tea time, it’s alcohol time. I need to be able to forget that screaming. Do you _actually_ like my eyes?”

“Well, yeah. Those aren’t the weirdest eyes I’ve ever seen, skinny,” Donna says. “Really, I could pair them against so many other types of eyes and they’re going to crop up as being normal to me. Now they would be normal, I mean. I…” Donna trails off and bites her lip. “Oh, God, I can remember _all_ of it.”

“Not all of it, or you’d be fucking dead!” Zaherael growls. “Your memories are there, and probably some of _his_, too, but—no, you know what? What the fuck happened? How did you end up with another alien’s consciousness inside your brain?”

“Biological Time-Lord/Human meta-crisis,” Donna supplies helpfully. “Which is really fun except for that head-exploding and dying part.” She accepts the cup and saucer of tea that Aziraphale brings over. “Thanks. Love the waistcoat,” she adds. “It’s very you.”

Aziraphale practically beams. “I don’t hear that very often. Thank you.”

“Stop encouraging him. It’s the twenty-first century and I’ve barely managed to drag him into the twentieth,” Zaherael mutters from the rug.

“I notice my brother hinted at his age, and you didn’t even blink,” Israfil says as he accepts his own tea. “Oh, you remembered the lemon. Thank you.”

“Of course I did.” Aziraphale looks vaguely insulted that he would forget that sort of detail. “Crowley, you cannot drink tea while lying on the floor.”

“I can if I tell gravity to bugger off.”

“No. Manners,” Aziraphale insists sternly. “Israfil has a guest.”

“Ugh. Just put it on the table, then. I don’t think I can move just yet.” Zaherael sniffs and then stares up at the ceiling. “Biological meta-crisis. I suppose that’s one thing to call ‘Oh fuck, I fucked up.’”

Donna let out a bit of choked-off laughter. “The Doctor likes to be descriptive, but I think that’s pretty accurate, yeah. He didn’t mean to, though. Things just…went wrong. They went so very wrong.” She picks up the bloodstained handkerchief Israfil provided her and dabs at her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be a bother—”

“Please, this isn’t a bother at all. This is intriguing,” Israfil corrects gently. “Much better than what I’d originally planned to do with the rest of my day, which was probably to binge-watch something horrific on the telly just to try and get a grasp on thousands of cultural references that are flying right over my head.”

“Right. Okay.” Donna sips carefully at her tea and then looks surprised to find that it’s already at the perfect temperature to drink. “How did you fix the meta-crisis? If the Doctor couldn’t do it, I don’t know how the pair of you could manage it. It’s supposed to be…well, impossible.”

“We’re healers,” Israfil explains. “The only thing we can’t fix is complete destruction of the soul.”

“Doesn’t mean your meta-crisis problem was easy to fix, though,” Zaherael adds, closing his eyes. “That’s had a long time to settle. When did this happen? Oh, and try to provide a more useful explanation than meta-crisis, all right? Because I don’t actually know what the fuck that means.”

Donna stares at Zaherael for a long moment. “No, you first. Are the pair of you twins?”

“Yes. Identical twins.” Israfil thinks about adding further details and then decides they’re currently irrelevant.

“It’s easier, looking at you, because your hair’s long,” Donna says to Israfil, “not to mention the blue eyes and that beauty mark. But him, when he closes his eyes? Except for the ginger, that is _exactly_ what the Doctor looks like.”

Zaherael shakes his head. “No, he was younger. In both senses of the word.”

Donna doesn’t look impressed. “Look, so you’ve got a few more years on your face, so what? My point is that with the eyes and hair color out of the equation, you’re _identical_. It’s sort of creepy.”

“He’s the bloke wandering about with _our_ face, and I can assure you, we’ve fucking well had it longer than he has,” Zaherael responds, scowling. “That means he’s creepy and we’re not.”

“Well, he swaps faces every now and then, so…maybe luck of the draw?” Donna suggests, but she doesn’t sound convinced. She starts talking about how she met this Doctor person, which includes something about Huon particles—“Oh, fantastic,” Zaherael grumbles—and an infestation of Racnoss beneath London.

Israfil’s eyes widen. “There was a _what_?”

Zaherael snorts. “Oh, that would have been fun. They would have eaten the Earth barren if that Doctor of yours hadn’t gotten rid of them.”

“What is a Racnoss?” Aziraphale asks crossly.

“Pre-Time cosmic infestation,” Israfil says. “I had to deal with at least two nests springing up near Aldebaran, and that was such a disaster that I finally told Gabriel to come out and set the bastards on fire before they ate everything I’d just finished putting together.”

“Seriously, who _are_ you people?” Donna finally blurts out in complete exasperation. She points at Israfil. “You said you weren’t an alien, but you both talk like you know things well beyond anything most types on Earth can conceive of.”

“Uh…I still don’t know a good word for it, sorry,” Israfil apologizes.

Aziraphale is making such a face. “I’m really not certain I should even say.”

Zaherael opens his eyes long enough to give them a sardonic look. “Do you know the term Celestial?”

Donna frowns. “No, no, I—wait, yes. Except you’re supposed to be a myth. A really old myth, too. Time-Lords talked about your lot, but in that sense of the ‘We think maybe they existed but don’t bet on it’ fashion.”

“I love it when people tell me I’m not supposed to exist,” Zaherael replies with lazy amusement. “We’re not aliens, Donna Noble. We’re extra-dimensional.”

Donna grasps on at once while Israfil is still trying to parse that from English back into the old Celestial tongues so he can figure out what it means. “You mean you’re from another plane of existence!” she says in excitement. Then she frowns again. “You felt pretty solid to me.”

Zaherael glares at her. “Yes, and my teeth thank you for that. You can be from another plane of existence and be a solid entity in this one, you know. It’s not like it’s difficult!”

“The worst part is the paperwork, really,” Aziraphale adds in blended humor and irritation.

“You even _speak_ like him,” Donna mutters crossly. “All right. Fine. Extra-dimensional physical beings with paperwork involved means bureaucracy, which means there are more of you.”

“You sound like a young woman who is well-acquainted with bureaucracy,” Aziraphale observes in a polite tone.

“Used to be a temp, and I mean I temped in just about every sort of industry and firm imaginable,” Donna says, but she doesn’t seem happy about it.

“And there aren’t more of us about, not here. Not usually,” Zaherael corrects. “I mean, Below tends to have a few idiots wandering about at all times, but not so much for Above.”

Donna gains the expression Israfil has seen on humans whenever the British political system becomes a topic of conversation. “Oh, so there’s enough bureaucracy involved that you’ve got political factions. That must be bloody grand.”

Zaherael sits up when Donna starts speaking about autumn of 2009. “Wait, you remember the fucking roaming pepper pots?”

“Of course I do—wait.” Donna gets a faint look of concentration on her face. “I remember someone claiming…planets in the sky…stolen Earth. Yes, yes, that—”

“That was a very bad day,” Aziraphale murmurs.

“—but then people stopped talking about it. Completely. All of it.” Donna blinks a few times, her tea forgotten. “Something happened, didn’t it? Something happened to make everyone forget.”

“In 1996, someone gave Time such a bloody kick in the pants that the timeline you’re remembering stopped existing,” Zaherael says from the floor. “We can remember it, extra-dimensional and all, but those invasions, all of the weird shit that marked the first decade of the twenty-first century? Gone. It didn’t repeat itself. You remember because you’re a disaster—”

“Oi, you watch it!” Donna snaps in outrage.

“—but otherwise? Aliens are nonsense again. No crashing ships, no terrifying little bastard spinny razor beings killing people—which was an erasure within an erasure, by the way—no moving of the Earth, no pepper pots, no robots…none of it.” Zaherael grabs for the tea that Aziraphale left on a nearby end table. “The terrorist byline at Canary Wharf still happened, so there must have been a strong enough mark in Time to keep it from resetting, but otherwise?” He shrugs. “Gone.”

“Does that mean that everything I did…that it means nothing?” Donna asks, her eyes starting to shine with tears again.

“No!” Zaherael looks annoyed by that. “No, it’s…” He puts the tea down and is blatantly trying not to sulk. “Fuck. I’m not _used_ to thinking of these things this way any longer!”

“Let’s just go with this,” Israfil suggests. “If you hadn’t done whatever it is you’re so concerned about, then it wouldn’t have happened at all, and then that ‘reboot’ my brother is talking about might not have happened, and then everything would be terrible.”

“Everything wouldn’t _exist_,” Zaherael growls. “It was Armageddon a full decade too early, and what did we get told? Stay out of it. Don’t interfere. Let it fix itself. Fucking wankers.”

“Even if it was rather interesting to suddenly be within a cluster of twenty-seven planets, it wasn’t worth the stress.” Aziraphale plucks at the edge of his coat with nervous fingers. Israfil observes that and decides that _stress_ is probably putting it far too mildly.

“Why—why would that matter?” Donna asks. Israfil’s skin prickles with the awareness that the human woman is very close to reaching her physical limit. There will either be sleep, or sobbing followed by sleep. He is very much hoping for the former. “I mean, you’re from another plane of existence. You could just leave.”

Zaherael’s jaw drops open. “Just—just leave? Woman, we bloody well _live_ here!”

“Quite so, and have done for a very long while.” At least Aziraphale doesn’t sound like he wants to start a pissing contest. “You don’t simply give up on your home because things are a bit…difficult.”

“I fought for this world, and I literally drove through hellfire for it, and I’d do it again,” Zaherael all but snarls. “It’s mine, and I won’t let some bloody rolling pepper pot put it in danger! Not again!”

Donna’s expression melts into warm sadness. “Now you really do sound like him. The Doctor, I mean.”

Zaherael pauses in suspicion. “Is that an insult?”

Donna shakes her head. “No,” she whispers, and then dabs at her eyes again. “Not in the slightest.”

“Oh.” Zaherael, bless him, doesn’t know what to make of that at all. Then he abruptly slumps to the side, catching himself on his elbow. “Oh, bollocks.”

“Yeah, I thought that might happen just based upon how I currently feel.” Israfil steps over his brother and holds out his hand to Donna. “You need to sleep, right now. I have a bed you may borrow, as I will be sleeping on my sofa, and—” He glances down. “And my brother is apparently going to be sleeping right there on the rug, since he just passed out.”

Donna tries to stifle a giggle that still has quite a bit of crying lodged in it. “He even sleeps like the Doctor, sprawled out and dead to the world. When he would sleep, anyway.”

Israfil helps her to stand when Donna is introduced to the realization that she really is quite exhausted. “I’d love to hear more, but healer’s orders: you’re to go to bed, right now.”

“Oh. All right. Do I need to be worried about my virtue or anything?” The question has a smile attached, but there’s a flicker of nervousness in her blue eyes that thankfully have no hint of gold energy lurking in them at all.

“Well, I’m involved with someone already,” Israfil says as he leads her down the hall and into the bedroom. His brother is right; he does have a bit of an obsession with dark blues now, but he restrained himself to keeping the color down on the bed and the carpet. Israfil added the print on the wall from Picasso’s Blue Period just to make Zaherael rant about it. “And my brother is dating Aziraphale out there, or…well. Really, they might as well be married,” he adds. “But I don’t know if that will ever even occur to them. Also, I tend not to date people I resemble.”

Donna gives him a brief glance as she sits down on the bed, almost as if she expects the mattress to bite her. “The hair and the eyes and the pale bit. Yeah, I could…you’re too skinny for me, anyway. You should really eat more.”

“Metabolism,” Israfil counters, because it’s mostly true. “Hmm. You’re not comfortable.” He thinks about it and then snatches a robe out of the ether. He still isn’t very good at pulling modern clothing forth, but in this instance, a robe will fill in for a dressing gown nicely. “Here. That should fit.”

Donna accepts the gifted robe with a curious look on her face. “How are you doing that? Are you opening up a pocket dimension and just grabbing things, or what?”

“You remember how I said I wasn’t up to date on cultural things?” Israfil smiles. “I don’t know what a pocket dimension is. I think. Or if I do, I think of it in a different way than you do. It’s more like I reach somewhere else with an intended outcome in mind, and just sort of…will it into existence.”

“That sounds dead useful,” Donna comments, largely unbothered by his explanation.

“You are a very rare human, Donna Noble.”

Donna smiles a bit. “Yeah. Unique, that’s me.”

Israfil shakes his head and then snaps his fingers. The purse she was carrying appears at her side. “There. That way if you decide we really are kidnapping you, you’ve got your mobile.”

Her smile widens. “That does help. Thank you. I mean…really. Thank you.”

Israfil nods. “It’s what I do. This door locks, by the way. Sleep, I mean it, or you’ll have the headache to end all headaches by morning.”

When he gets back out into the living room—sitting room—whatever the blazes it’s called—Aziraphale has covered Zaherael with a blanket from upstairs. “Oh, he’s fine,” Aziraphale says, and fusses briefly over Zaherael before he simply wills a pillow into place beneath Zaherael’s head. Zaherael’s response is to simply roll over and curl up in a tight ball of blanket with only the ends of his hair showing.

“All right. I’m passing out on my sofa. As in, right now,” Israfil says, and drops down onto the sofa in question. He bought one that is basically a clone of his brother’s sofa, and he doesn’t care, because memory foam is amazing. “Hang about if you’re worried about either of us, or the time-traveling woman in the bedroom. I think there’s still food lurking in the fridge.” Then he closes his eyes and gratefully falls straight past sleep and into dreams.

Zaherael is already there, regarding a cluster of stars with a pensive expression as his wings beat against the darkness. Israfil peers at the distant, familiar nebula. _Is that the Medusa Cascade?_

_Yeah._ Zaherael takes Israfil’s hand in a tight grip. _I never finished it. I wanted to, but I just…never had the chance._

_You could finish it now,_ Israfil suggests.

Zaherael glances at him, his eyes the same molten gold as their wings had been before they were marked by carbon dust. _I don’t remember how_.


	2. Everything is Changing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’re not stupid, either."
> 
> “I designed the M-25.”
> 
> “Never mind. You’re a complete sodding imbecile.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feeding the author = more fic! Kicking the author = rabies but probably not useful words.

Friday, 22nd May 2020

Donna’s eyes snapped open when being awake was less a gradual process and more a moment of utter, stupid panic. She stares up at the unfamiliar ceiling, calming her breathing, until everything in her brain slots itself back into place. She’s in some unfamiliar bloke’s flat: check. The bloke and his brother and his brother’s not-husband are extra-dimensional beings, not aliens: check. Aliens exist: check.

She’s going to slap the Doctor when she sees him again: great big bloody effin’ check.

Then Donna smiles. She’ll hug him afterwards, but the slap comes first. It’s the principle of the thing.

She sits up in bed, glad that the bed hadn’t really smelled of anyone, as that would have been…well, awkward. The robe thing had done fairly well as a nightgown, so she wasn’t sleeping in her clothes like a kid—

_I was asleep, on my bed, and in my clothes, like a flippin’ kid! What’d you let me do that for?_

Donna sniffs and digs through her purse until she finds a packet of disposable tissues, quickly blowing her nose as the tears start pouring out. She can remember that now. Mum looking angry, Granddad had been _crying_, and she hadn’t noticed, all wrapped up in herself, like she’d been before—

Before the Doctor. Before he changed her life. Made her a better person.

_You met Rose in that parallel universe. What did she say?_

_Just…the Darkness is coming._

_Anything else?_

_Why don’t you ask her yourself?_

Donna regards the crumpled tissues in her hand with bleary eyes. She’d gotten better again, eventually, but it’d taken a lot longer. Smarter, bit more self-confident. Shaun, her amazing husband, had helped so much with that. So had that stupid wedding gift of a lottery ticket that turned out to be a winner. It hadn’t propelled them into riches or anything, but it meant she and Shaun had their own place, bought and paid for, and money set aside if they ever needed it.

_It’s not fair._

_No, it’s not._

_But your own planet, it burned._

_That’s just it. Don’t you see, Donna? Can’t you understand that if I could go back and I could save them, then I would! But I can’t. I can never go back, I can’t, I just _can’t_! I can’t._

_Just someone. Please. Not the whole town. Just save _someone.

She’d spent most of the rainy day money on Shaun and Mum’s funeral after the car accident. She didn’t regret that, but she’d hated to sell Mum’s house afterwards. She couldn’t keep up with the taxes and the utilities on both places, even with a life insurance policy sending regular checks.

The Doctor had been in her house that last day. Introduced himself as John Smith while looking at her like his ruddy hearts were breaking. They probably had been. Donna buries her face in hands and chokes back another round of stupid, stupid sobbing.

_That’s their song._

_I can’t hear it._

_Do you want to?_

_Yeah._

_It’s the song of captivity._

_Let me hear it._

And it had been. It had broken her bloody heart to hear the Ood sing their grief and pain.

_Take it away._

_You sure?_

_I can’t bear it._

Granddad lives in the spare bedroom with Donna now. He isn’t so good at getting around anymore, but she can afford to hire a nurse to have about full-time. Just in case. Which is good, because last night—

Oh, bloody hell!

Donna reaches for her purse and digs out her mobile. It’s after 12:30 in the afternoon, and she slept through three of Granddad’s attempts to call. He probably thinks she’s lying dead in a ditch somewhere.

She quickly dries her face and clears her throat while hitting the button to call him back. It rings a few times, and just when she’s afraid it’s going to go to voicemail, he picks up. “Donna? That you?”

Donna nearly starts crying all over again. She sniffs and smiles. “Yeah, Granddad. It’s me. I’m okay. I’m sorry I missed your calls, something happened.” She rubs at her eyes with a rather pathetic mess of tissue shreds. “Something amazing. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you.”

“I’m just glad you’re all right, sweetheart,” Granddad replies. She can hear the genuine relief in his voice, just like she always could. “Where are you? Nurse Ratched here—”

“Oi, watch it, you,” Donna hears Annabel say in the background.

“—she told me you didn’t come home last night, and I might’ve panicked a bit.”

“I really didn’t mean for that to happen. It’s just…can you tell Annabel to go downstairs for a mo? Tell her it’s a confidentiality thing, her overhearing my medical history or something.”

“Yeah, yeah, hold on. Annabel, love, Donna had a medical thing happen and she doesn’t want to talk about it in front of you. Can you step out for a bit? Thanks, there’s a love.”

“You’re being sweet. You’d better not be up to anything,” Annabel’s faint voice says.

“I’m not, but she might be. Either way, no sense taking chances, all right?” Granddad is quiet for a moment. “All right, she’s gone, and I heard her foot hit the stairs just now. What is it, Donna?”

“I—I ran into a pair of not-aliens.”

Granddad goes very quiet, like he forgot to breathe.

“I’m okay! I’m really, _really_ okay. They’re—well, they said they were healers,” Donna explains, trying not to feel ridiculous. She knows Granddad knew. He’d known everything, kept her safe, kept her from wandering directly into a fatal flashback. “Granddad. I remember who John Smith is.”

“You do?” Granddad whispers.

“Yeah.” Donna swallows and gives up on the tissue remnants, digging through her purse for another pack. “And I’m—I’m okay. I dunno how, but they fixed it. It’s why I didn’t come home last night. I had to sleep it off or something.”

“Oh. Oh, God.” Granddad sniffles loudly. “Oh, I’m so, so glad. I’m so very glad to hear that.”

“You are?” Donna gives the tissue hunt up as a loss and starts using the sleeve of her gifted robe to keep her nose from dripping all over everything. “I didn’t…I didn’t know what you’d say.”

“Sweetheart. You were better with him, and I hated that you had to give it up. I always did,” Granddad sounds like he’s weeping just as messily as she is. “You’re _sure _you’re all right? The Doctor was so afraid that if you ever remembered—”

“I know. I can remember that, too. Still gonna slap him, though,” she adds, and he lets out a wheezing bit of laughter. “I’m not gonna burn up, Granddad. Promise. They took the energy that kept overloadin’ my circuits. Don’t know how yet, I sort of missed that part.”

“Well, as long as you’re all right, then I don’t much care how they did it,” Granddad replies. “But I don’t understand. Did they notice something was off with you? Or did something set it off? Right place, right time to run into a not-alien healer type?”

“Yeah, uh…that’s the bloody weird part,” Donna admits, and tells him.

* * * *

Donna puts her clothes back on, which aren’t all that rumpled for being draped over a bureau overnight. She finds the bathroom, which is a lovely bit of tiled work with high windows that let in a brilliant amount of light, but she hesitates at the idea of borrowing the shower. She hasn’t even told her not-alien hosts that she’s up and about yet. At least there is a proper hamper in the bath, so she bundles up the robe and shoves it inside the basket.

When she wanders out to the living room, the bloke who calls himself Crowley is just sitting up from beneath a blanket. His hair is crushed down on one side, which would probably be a bit more endearing if he didn’t look like he wanted to murder everyone. “Uh—hello.”

Crowley sniffs and glances over at her. “Oh, that actually did happen. How’re you and your slapping hand?”

Donna starts to respond in complete indignance before she realizes he’s teasing her. “My slappin’ hand is just fine, sunshine. I could do with some tea. Is anyone else about, or should we just take over your brother’s kitchen?”

He tilts his head until his neck is at a distressing angle and a tendon pops. Then he does what she suspects might be some rather deliberate blinking as he considers the idea. “Israfil’s…” He looks like he’s concentrating. “He’s getting breakfast. Lunch. Whatever. Do you eat Greek food?”

“I eat almost anything that won’t try to eat me first,” Donna replies, and heads into the kitchen anyway. The kettle is an obvious find, but then the hunt is on for tea and cups. “What about that other bloke? Ezrafil?”

“Aziraphale,” Crowley corrects in an absent voice. “Bookshop. He owns the one down the street.”

“I don’t actually know where I am,” Donna points out. Loose-leaf black tea in a tin that smells like a good standard English breakfast—that’ll do. “No, wait. Your brother said he lived in Soho. Do you mean Ezra Fell’s Used Books, then?” She’d passed it by a few times, but she was a bit more into modern books. Besides, from the description of the shop hours posted on the door, she’d always gotten the feeling she wouldn’t be able to afford anything in that shop even if something had appealed.

“Yeah. That’s the one.” Crowley finally stands up, revealing that he slept in his clothes, and stretches until his spine joins his neck with the cracking. She’s eying his jacket, thinking it’s a shame it’s all rumpled, when suddenly it isn’t anymore.

“That’s a neat trick. Would you do that to my clothes? I hate putting on clothes I already wore the day before,” Donna says.

Crowley stares at her for a minute. Then he snaps his fingers.

Donna’s clothes instantly feel like they’re fresh from the dryer, and not a bit rumpled. “Thanks. That’s much better. I wanted a shower, but—seemed a bit rude, not having been invited to do so or anything.”

“You are a _very_ odd woman,” Crowley says, walking past her and going straight to a mini-fridge installed beneath the counter. He pulls out a bottle of wine, expensive by the look of it. Then he yanks the cork free and starts drinking directly from the bottle.

“Oi, there! Do you always chug wine for breakfast?”

Crowley lowers the bottle and looks at her as if he’s still trying to figure out what she’s made of. “No. Sometimes I have it for lunch and dinner, too. Why?”

“Because if you’re breaking out the bubbly already, then you need to bloody well share, that’s what,” Donna tells him.

“You’re already making tea.”

“I can multi-task.”

“Are you an alcoholic?” Crowley asks, sounding as if he might legitimately care about the answer.

“No, I’m a recent widow,” Donna replies, and finally, there are the bloody cups for the tea. “I know it’s a bit trendy for the footie mum sorts to drink wine when the day starts, but I’ve never been a mum, and I haven’t yet figured out what else to do with my time.”

“Widow,” Crowley repeats. He gives her another brief stare before he opens a cabinet and retrieves two wine glasses. “What happened?”

Donna decides that the wine glasses coming out are probably a peace-offering. Or bribery. She isn’t much fussed either way. “Last spring, my husband Shaun, he was driving my mum about. She was already getting on in years, and didn’t quite trust herself to drive on her own any longer. Anyway…” Donna hesitates, both because there is a now a glass of wine under her nose, and because it always hurts to say it. “Shaun didn’t do anything wrong. He was driving down the street, legal speed limit an’ everything, but someone reversed into the road to pull out of their drive. They weren’t…they said it themselves. They forgot to look. They clipped Shaun’s car, and it spun them around and into a tree at about fifty miles per hour. Mum died on impact and I’m glad, because she didn’t suffer. Shaun had the airbags, and…they tried to save him.”

She buries her nose in the wine glass and drinks half of the wine straight off. It’s amazing stuff, sweet instead of cheaply bitter. “It just didn’t work out. But we had nine amazing years together, which is more than I ever thought I’d have with anyone.”

Crowley picks up the bottle and tops off her glass. “I’m sorry,” he says, and she can tell he means it. Maybe it’s because his expressions are so similar, because it’s certainly not body language. This not-alien walks like his joints are too loose, all slinky-like, whereas the Doctor always moved in bursts of controlled mania. “I’m really no good at comforting people. I used to be all right at it, but that was…that was a long time ago.”

“How old are you?” She smirks when he looks offended. “I just handed you my heart on a platter. Least you can do is share.”

“I’m already sharing. You’re just greedy.” Crowley sounds like he approves of that. “Six thousand twenty-three and spare change as of the first day of spring. Probably.”

Donna finishes up making two cups of tea. “Sugar or cream? Also, spare change?”

“Just black’s fine. And yeah, spare change.” Crowley accepts the teacup and puts it right next to the wine glass, as if this is normal. Maybe it is. Maybe she’s dealing with a species that lives off alcohol. Wouldn’t be the first time for that. “Time wasn’t really a thing that was happening in this part of the universe yet, so before that wheel was kick-started, time is…well, relative.”

“But it existed in other parts of the universe. I mean, Gallifrey being in one of the oldest parts of the universe means time started in those old parts and spread out as the universe expanded, that’s just basic science,” Donna says, and then gasps. “I’m bloody smart again! This is fantastic!”

Now Crowley looks offended. “First off, other plane of existence, so time existing somewhere in the universe doesn’t necessarily mean anything for me. Second: who told you that you were stupid?”

“I probably have a list somewhere.” Donna sips at the tea. It’s once again already the perfect temperature for drinking. “Do all of your lot just muck about with physics like it’s nothing?”

“Really, it depends on who you’re dealing with.” Crowley frowns. “You’re not stupid, even without that extra content floating about inside your skull. Anyone who says otherwise can shut it.”

“How do you know I’m not stupid?” Donna asks. She can’t tell if she’s curious or fishing, but then, it probably doesn’t matter.

Crowley smirks at her. “Because I’m _really_ fucking stupid, so I know stupid when I see it.” Then the expression drops from his face as he sits bolt-upright. “I’ve said that before.”

Donna raises an eyebrow and switches back to the wine. “Déjà vu?”

“Yeah. Hate that feeling. You said yesterday that this was a human-Time Lord meta-crisis thing, right?”

Donna nods. “Yeah. The Doctor is a Time Lord from Gallifrey.”

“I knew it was someone from the Kasterborous Constellation. I could smell that part.” Crowley has his head tilted like he’s listening, which is going to start driving Donna mental, because it’s so very _Doctor_. “Time Lord. Gallifrey. I know those words. I’ve heard them before, but not in English.”

“You’re not stupid, either,” Donna protests.

Crowley snorts. “I designed the M-25.”

“Never mind. You’re a complete sodding imbecile.”

“Told you.” He drinks down the rest of the wine in his glass and then his eyes widen. “Greek. They were speaking Greek—Ancient Greek. Oh, that…that doesn’t really narrow things down.”

“Sure it does,” Donna counters. “Earth’s language history isn’t that bloody complicated. Ancient Greek ran from about the ninth or tenth century BCE to the third or fourth century CE. Then you just narrow it down: was it Archaic, Classical, or Hellenistic Greek?”

“I am going to be just consistently pissed if I spend all my time around you.” Crowley gets up and goes back to the mini-fridge. “I’m fetching another bottle. Do you know that about Greek because of what I left behind from that annoying bastard with my face, or is that you?”

“That one’s just me,” Donna says. “Temp jobs are so dull sometimes. I always made certain I had a book to read.”

“And you just happened to be studying Ancient Greek?”

Donna shrugs. “It was in a romance novel. The plot was complete rubbish, but the author knew their history. I double-checked it on the internet when I was reading through that part because I wanted to know if they’d pulled it out of their arse or not.”

Crowley pulls the cork on a new bottle. “Drink a glass of water before you have any more of this, because if you dehydrate, Israfil will throw a complete fit.”

Donna finds another glass to fill with water. “Sure.” She doesn’t want to be utterly pissed, anyway. Bit off, maybe, but not completely gone. “So, which was it?”

“Archaic,” Crowley answers, his tongue sliding along his own teeth as he thinks about it. Donna notes that his incisors are taller, top and bottom. Not so much that they look out of place or inhuman, but it’s noticeable if you’re paying attention.

The Doctor would often lick the front of his own teeth if he was thinking something through. Donna is going to be giving him such a rundown about his family history after this, because there is definitely a connection between a set of not-alien healer twins and her favorite idiot.

“Two!” Crowley suddenly yells.

Donna nearly knocks over her own wine glass and glares at him. “Don’t go and scare the life out of me like that! That was supposed to be limited to yesterday, thank you!”

“Sorry. Just—there were two of them. Two Time Lords. Ladies. Whatever. It was back when I was in Dardanus, trying _not_ to be responsible for the fall of Troy.”

Donna finishes off her water just so she can snag the new wine bottle. It’s a different vintage, still expensive, and she wants to know what it tastes like. “Why would you be responsible for the fall of Troy?”

“Politics,” Crowley mutters. Given what Donna can remember of yesterday afternoon regarding bureaucracy, paperwork, and politics, she probably doesn’t want to know. “Either way, there were two Time Lords in Dardanus, which was just up the coast from Troy. One of them was looking for me in particular for…something.” He frowns. “I don’t remember what.”

“Why not?”

“Because it was a wine for lunch sort of day,” Crowley says in blunt honesty. “Our type of being doesn’t have perfect recall because we’re not perfect. No one is. It’s the other one, though. Her, I remember, because she was also very stupid. Good heart—well, hearts, I suppose—but self-admittedly quite the idiot.”

“Why does that matter?” Donna asks. The new wine tastes like strawberries and grapes had a mutant love child. It’s not bad, just odd.

“Because she introduced herself, and the word translated the only way I knew it at the time. Healer. But that’s not what she said. She called herself the Doctor.”

Donna gave him a blank look. “But the Doctor’s a man. Granted, he could have regenerated into a new face and I wouldn’t even know it right now, but still—man. You sure about that?”

“Oh, yeah. Definitely a woman,” Crowley confirms, and then glances down into his wine glass. “Whose stupid idea was this? You either have strawberry wine or grape wine. You don’t put them together. How do Gallifreyans and Time Lords feel about gender, anyway?”

“We never really discussed it.” Donna decides she isn’t in the mood for any more of the love-child wine and goes for another cup of tea. “Though…” She focuses on those parts of her thoughts that aren’t really hers. She didn’t really keep any of the Doctor’s memories, and thank God for that, because he was a complete nutter, but information hung about nicely enough.

“They tended towards a binary male/female representation. They usually kept to the gender they biologically presented as, but could swap genders for a regeneration. Some of them chose to, some of them tried to avoid it. Sometimes it would just happen.” Donna wrinkles her nose. “I do _not_ want to even know what looming is. But anyway, it was only Time Lords that regenerated, and it was a pretty hard set limit of twelve regenerations per person. I think they genetically built it in or something. Not everyone on Gallifrey was a Time Lord, though. In fact…oh, he really could have mentioned that. They were actually the minority of the population. It’s apparently really hard to be named as a Time Lord.”

“So, I probably met your idiot, then,” Crowley says.

Donna sighs and shrugs. “You could have. I have enough in my head to know it would have been after the time I knew him, though. Every face he had before that was definitely male. What did the Doctor want with you?”

“Nothing. I had the feeling she was just along for the ride with the other one,” Crowley replies.

Donna frowns. “No. That’s not right. It can’t have been the Doctor.”

“Why not?”

“Because his homeworld, Gallifrey—it burned.” Donna feels the pain of it in her thoughts. Deep down, the Doctor was hiding it, awful guilt and grief that’s harsher than the Ood’s song of captivity. “He was the only one left. The year before, he’d run into one survivor, a complete nutter in the dangerous sense, but when someone killed the survivor, he refused to regenerate, so it was back down to just being the Doctor again.”

“Time traveler,” Crowley points out in annoyance.

“No, that didn’t matter. Gallifrey was locked. Time-locked. There was a war, a war that went wrong, and the Doctor, he…he made the decision to lock away a burning planet so what they’d done wouldn’t tear apart the rest of the universe,” Donna explains quietly. “He hated himself for it.”

“Donna.” She glances up to find Crowley giving her a thoughtful look. “That doesn’t mean that Gallifrey remains time-locked forever. Existence is going to last for a _very_ long time. Planet full of people who manipulate time and space? They could’ve figured out how to get out, maybe even without anyone noticing.”

“That might be bad,” Donna says.

“Not as bad as what’s happening right now.”

Donna glares at him. “There’s no need to be rude! It wasn’t my fault I ran into your brother! Well, maybe, but—”

Crowley holds up his hand. “Don’t, not…it’s not that. Saving you made Israfil happy. Okay, it made me happy, too, because I don’t like seeing people die for stupid reasons that aren’t actually their fault. Terrible character flaw, really. What I mean is while we’ve been sitting here speaking about time, I realized that something is…not right. At all.”

“What is it, then?” Donna asks. “Because if something’s wrong, I want to know about it.”

“Nosey, aren’t you?” Crowley seems amused by that, but then he tilts his head to listen again. “I can freeze time. Dunno why, it’s just something I can do. It means that I’m probably paying more attention to time than your average Celestial, or whatever you want to call us.”

“What, did someone freeze time, then?” It would explain why Israfil hasn’t turned up with lunch yet, and Donna is starting to remember that wine and tea are no substitute for food.

“No.” Crowley pinches the bridge of his nose and then rubs his forehead. “Not sure.” He pulls back his jacket sleeve and glances at his watch, which is an expensive piece of work. “All I can tell you is that yesterday, time felt normal, and today, it doesn’t.”

“Could that be because of me? I mean, a Time-Lord/Human meta-crisis isn’t supposed to exist,” Donna says.

“No, because you’re not a meta-crisis thingy anymore,” Crowley responds. “There might be enough Time Lord bits hanging about in your head to make you ping on their radar, but not the way it was before. Not even that shiny leftover alien energy we pulled out would have been enough to alter how time feels. Pretty sure this is something else.”

“Oh.” Donna sips at her fresh cup of tea. “That’s probably bad, then.”

Crowley rolls his eyes. “Please. It can’t possibly be any worse than the actual Apocalypse—fuck, I just cursed us, didn’t I?”

Donna nods, smiling. “Yeah, you probably did. Good job, sunshine.”

“Fuck you, too.”

* * * *

When Israfil finally turns up with food, Donna nearly accosts him at the door. “You took too long, starving, gimme,” she says, snatching at the takeaway bag that smells like it has spanakopita inside.

Israfil gives her a baffled look as she escapes to the kitchen table with her prize. “Er, you’re welcome? Sorry, it’s Friday. I always forget humans and Fridays during the lunch hour are a lesson in chaotic disaster.”

“Not my fault,” Crowley declares, and then goes straight back to drinking the wine he was so offended by.

When Donna glances up from unpacking two boxes and a few cups of sauces from the bag, Israfil is rolling his eyes at his brother. “At least she’s sensible enough to drink water, first. What’s wrong with you?”

“She—” Crowley points at Donna with the wine bottle, “—made me remember that I’ve met this Doctor person before, except he was a she at the time, and also…” He trails off and lowers the bottle in consternation. “Bollocks, I almost had it!”

“He says he was having a wine for lunch day when they met,” Donna explains, and Israfil sighs.

“Got it. The memory will come back to you if you stop prodding at it,” Israfil says to Crowley, and then hands Donna a fork from the nearest drawer. “I hate that plastic takeaway cutlery. Pollution. Also, I keep breaking them.”

“Thanks.” Donna bulldozes her way through most of the spanakopita before she feels less likely to start chewing on the leg of the next person to walk by. “Tell Israfil the other thing before you’re too pissed to remember,” Donna suggests.

Crowley glances up from a cheese something-or-other that Donna can’t remember the name for. He eats like he’s just picking at crumbs of food, but he still made progress, since half of it is gone. “Oh. Right. Time feels wrong.”

Israfil pauses in the midst of trying out the love-child wine. He doesn’t look impressed, either. “Wrong how?”

“Dunno. It just doesn’t feel right. It’s part of what woke me up. Well, that and you heading out.”

“Speaking of time.” Donna puts her fork down and folds her hands on the table as she leans forward. “Me remembering both of those timelines, it can’t just be because I’m a _disaster_.” Crowley smirks at her quoting. “My granddad can remember them, too. We talked about it when I rung him earlier to let him know I wasn’t lying dead in a ditch somewhere off in the countryside.”

“There’s a charming image,” Israfil observes. “Does he share your problem?”

“No! No, he would be—” Donna hesitates. “I think he’d still be a bit more spry if he was. I’m fifty-two, an’ I know I don’t look it.”

Crowley blinks several times and gives her a brief, studious glare. “Yeah…you’re right. There’s enough of that alien energy left over that you’ll probably keep at that for a bit, too. Two hundred years?” he asks, glancing at Israfil.

“Maybe two-fifty,” Israfil replies. “Your lifespan,” he adds when Donna stares at them. “It’s longer than a normal human’s by quite a bit, but it feels like it’s going to be a healthy one, so…congratulations?”

Donna sits back in surprise. “All right. I really don’t know how I feel about that, so I’m just gonna ignore it for now. Listen. Granddad wants to meet the lot of you, and I’d like it if you would, too.”

“That’s a terrible idea,” Crowley grumbles.

“You just hate people,” Israfil says.

“No, I hate _most_ people.”

“Oi, no—he’s fine with aliens, and even not-aliens,” Donna retorts. “In fact, I’m pretty sure Granddad helped the Doctor clear up a different alien mess at Christmastime in 2009.”

Crowley shakes his head. “I wouldn’t know a thing about that one. I was shitfaced for the holiday.”

“I was technically dead,” Israfil adds.

“At some point, I really, really want you to explain ‘technically dead,’” Donna says, and then frowns at Crowley. “Why were you pissed for Christmas? Is it a bad time of year for you or something?”

Crowley shrugs. “Tradition. I mean, it’s partly because Krampusnacht is a lot more fun than Yule, and partly because they’ve got the date wrong. He was born in the spring, not bloody Christmas. The rest of it is that Aziraphale and I managed to convince our respective _political factions_ that, due to the low ebb of humanity on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, we shouldn’t bother to be out and about.”

Donna smiles. “You convinced them to give you those days off with the power of bureaucracy.”

“Basically, yeah.” Crowley empties the last of the love-child wine into the glass and is relieved to see the bottle empty. “Don’t buy this again; it’s complete shit.”

Israfil looks amused. “It doesn’t seem to have stopped you from drinking it.”

“It was there. Anyway, Aziraphale and I missed every single bit of weird alien Christmas nonsense thanks to that arrangement, which was good, since most of it was completely ridiculous.”

Donna nods in rueful agreement. “That Racnoss thing I mentioned? I tried to get married that day, first time ’round, the one that didn’t work out. Got attacked and kidnapped by killer Santa robots, instead.”

Israfil stares at her in utter incomprehension. Crowley laughs so hard he nearly falls off his chair.

“Okay. I’m fine with it. I’ll meet your grandfather, but only if Israfil and Aziraphale are fine with it, too,” Crowley says after he calms down, hiccupping halfway through the sentence.

Israfil nudges him. “Sober up a bit, will you? It’s too early for this.”

“It is _never_ too early,” Crowley responds, but he twitches his head, shakes out his limbs, and immediately sits up straighter. “Anyway. If they’re all right with it, I am, too. Hell, if your grandfather can handle your Gallifreyan moron and all the aliens, he’s got to have a brain in his head. Just keep in mind that we don’t really do this. This is as far as it goes. We don’t _tell _people this shit. ‘Oh, hey, it’s just us, three Celestials who live out in Soho, how you doing?’ No. Doesn’t fly.”

Donna has a flash of the TARDIS in her thoughts, and a memory of laughing about Latin. “Hey, do me a favor? Say what you are in your own language.”

Crowley scowls. “You wouldn’t understand it.”

“Oh, yeah? Try me, sunshine.”

Israfil is the one who opens his mouth to say the word, but they’re almost correct. It’s really hard to understand, loud and piercing. “Ow. No wonder you lot stick with English. I think my eardrums nearly ruptured,” Donna complains, rubbing at her ears. “I heard that, though. You said archangel.”

“How the hell?” Crowley asks, brow drawing together in confusion. Which, again, is very much just like the Doctor, and that really is going to drive her mental soon.

“The TARDIS is a ship with a built-in telepathic circuit that gets into her passenger’s heads and provides translation for any spoken language. Sort of helps you have a leg up on what’s going on around you so you don’t say the wrong thing and die,” Donna explains. She can’t help smiling a bit smugly at both of them. “Much like artron energy, the after-effects never go away.”

Israfil sighs. “Aziraphale is right; I need to read more science-fiction. What’s telepathy?” He jerks in place and then glares at Crowley. “Oh. That’s what it is.”

“You’re telepathic, too?” Donna asks, grinning.

“Ehhh. Sort of, but not really? It’s not quite the same thing.” Crowley is regarding her in irritated disbelief. “And you’re just fine with the archangel thing?”

“Sort of. It’s going along right there with the age thing you lot just mentioned. I’m a bit freaked out and trying to ignore it,” Donna admits. “I’m fine with being agnostic, but if you’re angels, and that whole bit about Above and Below is exactly what I think you mean, then—”

“Hey, no, stop.” Crowley holds up both his hands, looking almost panicked. “Don’t. Don’t assume that because something exists, you have to adhere yourself to someone else’s set standards of belief. That’s dangerous, and it’s complete and utter rubbish Stick with being an agnostic. It means you never stop asking questions. People who stop asking questions stop thinking, and I hate that shit.”

Donna spends a few moments in a state of complete shock. Honestly, she sort of expected the opposite response. “The Doctor said something really similar to me once, long time ago. When I first went out into space and traveled, things happened, and I told him I wasn’t sure what was right or wrong anymore. He said it was better that way. He said people who know for certain tend to miss the whole point.”

“Good point of view,” Israfil says.

Donna lifts her head as Crowley’s head and shoulders lower in a visible sulk. “Ohhh. Oh, I know that look. The Doctor said something to you that you didn’t like at all.”

“It was nothing,” Crowley mutters.

Israfil rests his chin on his hand. “I’m really not convinced. What did he say?”

“_She_,” Crowley insists. “Well, at the time, anyway. Look, I don’t want to—”

“Is it really that bad right now?” Israfil asks quietly, “Or was it that bad then?”

Donna could almost swear Crowley’s eyes are glowing before he finally snaps, “Fine! It was that bad_ then_ because it was full of hope, and hope was bloody useless, all right?”

Israfil waits a moment before speaking. “No. No, it wasn’t, and you knew it. You liked that she said it. You just didn’t believe it would ever happen.”

Crowley’s eyes are suddenly entirely gold, not just human-looking with implausible golden irises and slit pupils. “Stop doing that!”

“No!” Israfil glares back at his brother. “I’m not going to sit here and watch my brother lie for no useful purpose, especially to himself. It doesn’t help, it won’t fix anything, and honestly, it’s really bloody annoying!”

Donna holds her breath, wondering if this is about to come to blows. There’s an _energy_ to the room that makes everything feel like it’s vibrating.

It occurs to her, sort of belatedly, that riling up two powerful extra-dimensional beings is probably a stupid idea.

Crowley backs down first. “Okay. Yeah. I did.”

“Thought so,” Israfil says mildly. “What did she say?”

“She said…she said she was damned sure she knew it when she saw someone who wanted to be better,” Crowley answers. It isn’t a shout or even a statement, but a raw, broken whisper that makes Donna’s heart hurt. Oh, something there is a complete and utter mess.

Maybe it’s the fact that she isn’t stupid, like Crowley insisted. Maybe it’s part of the way the Doctor thinks, but suddenly she understands. “Oh. Oh! You were—you used to be part of the Below faction! That’s why you didn’t like it—except you didn’t want to be part of that faction.” Donna gives them a surprised look. “That’s actually an option? Switching teams like that?”

Crowley makes a frustrated noise and then lets his head thunk down onto the table. Israfil only looks amused by the dramatics and pats Crowley on the shoulder. “Why wouldn’t it be? The problem with both sides is what he was just telling you about. Above and Below got stuck in the mindset of being certain that they were right. They stopped thinking about anything beyond that certainty, and then everything went to complete shit. Worse, it nearly went to complete shit twice over.”

“So, what, you thought you were right? And that’s why Below was a thing?” Donna asks, curious. Crowley is a complete arse, but he doesn’t really seem evil, or even really inclined for it. Leaving aside the bit about the M-25, at least.

“No. I was…I was forced into it, and afterwards, I just…” Crowley sits up again and shakes his head. “No. I don’t want to talk about this. I can’t. I really just—you’re annoying and I barely know you, so let’s just leave it at that, right?”

Donna nods. “Sure. I’m proud of being annoying, anyway.”

That causes Crowley to smile briefly. “You always should be.”


	3. The Darkness is Coming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Are you two related to the Doctor somehow?” Wilf asks curiously.  
“_No,_” Crowley says at once.  
“I really can’t see how we could be,” Israfil adds.

“So, you’re really all right with the idea of meeting Ms. Noble’s grandfather?”

“Don’t see what it could hurt at this point,” Crowley says, glancing back over his shoulder. Israfil is giving Donna one more careful examination to make certain they didn’t miss anything, but Crowley is already pretty sure they didn’t. Dragging out an alien consciousness from where it doesn’t belong is too exhausting for him to have mucked that up. “She was using mass transit to get from Chiswick to Knightsbridge, so I need to fetch the car. You up for a drive?”

“The way you drive through London, it will certainly be a brief trip,” Aziraphale comments. Through the mobile, Crowley can hear him stacking books. “The really annoying thing is that I’m certain I’ve read about this Doctor fellow before. I’m just not certain where, which means it’s been a while.”

“Mm. Can’t say I’ve read anything about him. I’ve just got the memory of Dardanus.”

“Is that who you subcontracted the wooden horse bit out to, then?” Aziraphale asks.

“No, that was the other one.” Crowley taps his fingers on the wall. “The Library, maybe?”

“Maybe, but not right now. I have to admit I’m curious to meet a human who isn’t full of alien energy who can remember both timelines. Besides, meeting the elderly is always a bit fascinating. It’s like catching a glimpse of a time capsule before it’s lost forever.”

“Don’t…don’t phrase it like that to Donna.” Crowley glances over his shoulder again when Israfil makes Donna laugh by prodding at her aura. She was either a bit psychic in the first place, or that Doctor bloke wore off on her. “I don’t think she’s ready to lose more family, and I have a feeling her grandfather is riding the edge.”

“Of course I won’t. I’m not _that_ callous,” Aziraphale insists with a slight sniff of indignance. “I’ll walk down to your building and meet you at the car. You’ll be parking in your usual spot of ‘completely in everyone’s way,’ yes?”

“Sure. Everyone always thinks it’s a brief antique display show, or someone is lurking about with a camera to film part of a movie.” There are great advantages to living in Soho; aside from having to keep the Bentley in a paid spot in a multistorey, that touristy air of is definitely one of them. He can leave the car out all day and the worst he has to concern himself with is a tremendous number of photos of his car turning up on the internet, and a multitude of children’s fingerprints along the sides. He doesn’t mind children’s fingerprints; they’re just leaving greasy little bits of love behind. The Bentley likes the attention.

Crowley stops by Carol’s desk on the ground floor before they head out. “Anything fun in the mail?”

“Only if you count a pile of junk adverts thick enough to line all the bird cages in the zoo,” Carol responds, smiling. She tilts her head at Donna. “Anything I should know about going on there?”

“Look, if you haven’t figured out yet that I’m dating Aziraphale, there’s no help for you at all,” Crowley replies, amused. “She’s a…oh, I have a terrible feeling she’s going to end up in the friend category. Oh, bollocks. I have enough people to be responsible for as it is.”

“The horror,” Carol agrees in a mild voice. “Should I keep an eye for anything while you’re out, then?”

“Probably not. Though, if someone calling themselves the Doctor shows up, they’re probably harmless. Maybe. Either way, give me a ring and let me know.”

“Is this going to be anything like that Hastur bloke showing up?” Carol asks, eyes widening a bit.

“Oh! No. Absolutely not.” Crowley pauses. “Better not be, anyway.”

Donna shrieks in delight when she sees the Bentley. “Oh, she’s a beauty! I haven’t seen a car like this in a long time. Granted, when I was seeing them, they were all brand new.” She gives Crowley a _look_. “She seems as brand-new as they were.”

“She’d better be; she’s had only one owner, and that’s me.” Crowley hesitates. “You don’t like driving, right?”

“Not like I used to. Makes me a bit nervous. Why?” Donna asks.

Crowley smiles when he notices Aziraphale approaching in a polite rush. “Might want to sit in the back, then. My driving terrifies the life out of Aziraphale, and he wouldn’t even die if anything went wrong. Just a bit of inconvenient discorporation.”

Donna snorts. “Look, your boyfriend sounds like a dear, but I rode around in a spaceship with a madman at the helm who was not necessarily the greatest driver in existence. I can handle it.”

Crowley shrugs. “Suit yourself. Zira?”

“Sorry, sorry, got caught up in driving people_ out_ of the bookshop,” Aziraphale apologizes. “Sitting in the back of this car is odd, you know.”

“She’s navigating. I don’t know where the hell we’re going aside from Chiswick.”

Aziraphale nods. “Yes, I suppose that’s fair enough. Budge over, Israfil.”

“I am budged over! It is not my fault the backseat of this car is not much larger than a tin can.”

Donna squeaks in mild terror when they pick up speed. “You’re going ninety miles per hour in _London!_”

“Yep.”

She goes quiet for a minute while Aziraphale mutters a prayer in the backseat in regards to the pedestrians. “You’re bending reality to keep everyone out of the way.”

“Yep.”

Israfil starts laughing as Aziraphale begins to sputter. “Anthony J. Crowley, you never once admitted that you were cheating!”

Crowley grins. “Like it’s my fault you never noticed, angel.”

“Yes, well, I was a bit more concerned with the speed and the pedestrians and the traffic!” Aziraphale retorts.

“Angel, I drove beneath a bus one day,” Crowley reminds him. “Granted, I think you might’ve had your hands over your face at that point, so I suppose you’ve got an excuse.”

“This is _so much fun!_” Donna exclaims, a huge grin of delight on her face. “Oh, take the A4. If you’re cheating, it’ll be faster to get to Chatsworth Road that way.”

“You could spit from the A4 and hit Chatsworth,” Crowley points out.

“Yeah, but I liked being close to the gardens. Mum’s old place was up north of Chiswick Common. I loved my mum, and wanted to stick around for Granddad, but I didn’t want to live _that _close to her.”

“Oh, that’s me, right there,” Donna says after they’re off onto Chatsworth and into Grove Park. Crowley doesn’t need to cheat as much here, or really at all. Too residential, too quiet. The house she points out is a detached bungalow with a garage. The front is thoroughly tiled instead of gardened out, though a few bricked-in squares of landscaping are playing host to some rather pathetic plants.

“Please put those out of their misery,” Crowley says as he pulls into the drive. “Just…rocks. Fake plants. Don’t do that to them.”

“I really did try,” Donna admits, glancing at the plants in question. “I still don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”

“Trying to grow plants, that’s where you went wrong.” Crowley gets out of the car and then snaps his fingers to turn off the engine. “Maybe lawn sculptures. Offensive ones.”

“Oh, that’d rile up the neighbors.” Donna sighs at her dying shrubbery. “Maybe. Oh, maybe I can check the local restrictions and just drop in a wind turbine or something.”

Aziraphale straightens his coat as he gets out. “You don’t like your neighbors, do you?”

“Not a bit. Bunch of daft twits,” Donna says with an annoyed huff.

“Mix it up a bit. Offensively sculpted wind turbine,” Israfil suggests as Donna leads them to the front door. She pulls a set of keys from her purse and sorts through them to find one that looks to have been attacked by a purple Sharpie.

“Oh, I like that idea.” Donna unlocks and pushes open her door, which is as dated towards the late 1990s as the rest of the house. The inside is worse: bright walls, warm and pale woods, and the sort of lived-in clutter that makes Crowley twitch.

“You’ve a lovely place,” Aziraphale says, which is predictable, as his angel also lives in a pile of clutter. His clutter just happens to be acceptable, most of it being books.

“Thanks, but it’s a complete disaster,” Donna replies absently, dropping her purse on a table near the door. “Come in, and don’t worry about your shoes. I haven’t been able to get a cleaning service into this place in a month. I’ve all but given up on the carpets ever being hoovered again.”

“Don’t own one of your own?” Crowley asks while glancing around. Behind the clutter of paperwork and knickknacks, other things are starting to stand out. There are souvenirs from around the Earth hidden behind the wreckage, and not gift shop nonsense, either. Those are things carefully chosen, objects that hold meaning he can almost reach out and read with ethereal fingertips. It’s not cluttered in this house because Donna is messy, but because she’s doing an excellent job of hiding the reminders of what she’s lost.

Sometimes he understands humans a bit too well. He did the opposite, made himself look at stark reminders of all the things he couldn’t have. Self-flagellation and denial really are far too close friends for his liking.

"Can't remember where the bloody thing is." Donna looks up as a woman who perfectly embodies _matronly_ comes downstairs, greying hair piled up in a messy bun on top of her head. She has kind eyes, a stern mouth, and all but screams caretaker. “Annabel!”

“Oh, good. I’m glad you’re back, dear,” Annabel says, stepping down onto the ground floor. “Was a bit worried when Jackie on night-shift said you didn’t make it back last night.”

“Sorry, it was just…sorry.” Donna sighs. “Oh, right. Annabel, this is Crowley, Israfil, and Aziraphale. They helped me out last night when things went a bit sideways. You lot, this is Annabel. She helps me take care of Granddad.”

Annabel gives them a properly suspicious look which is laced with a fair bit of lustful suspicion. Crowley nearly rolls his eyes. Someone needs to go have a tumble as soon as they can find someone willing to have a go at it. “Then I’m glad you lot helped her out. I’m fond of Donna, here. She’s been good to me from the start.”

“Oi, shut it, you.” Donna digs into her pockets and shoves a crumpled twenty pound note into Annabel’s hand. “I’m here for the next bit, at least, and I know you’re overdue for a lunch break because Charles is always bloody late to swap with you. Have this one on me, yeah?”

Annabel smiles. “Like I said; you’ve always been good to me.”

“How’s Granddad?” Donna asks.

Annabel’s smile falters. “He’s sleeping a bit more. More than usual. You know.”

Donna presses her lips together before nodding. “Yeah. Okay. Thanks for telling me.”

After Annabel leaves, Donna shakes off the melancholy and smiles. “All right, upstairs, you lot. Chop chop.”

“What does the sleeping have to do with anything?” Aziraphale asks Crowley, his voice pitched too low for human ears.

“Humans at the end tend to sleep more and more. Eventually they don’t wake up,” Crowley murmurs. He’s seen it often, usually on Below’s orders. Crowley just happened to be in the wrong place at the right bloody time in order to make certain that souls who’d made the wrong sorts of deals went where they were supposed to go. He’d always hated it, facing a freshly discorporated soul. He loathed watching the hope in their eyes flicker and die when he reminded them that they’d done something they really shouldn’t have back when they were young and so, so stupid.

The upstairs bedroom Donna leads them into has been converted into a hospice, but it’s well done, not cheap in the slightest. A pricey humidifier is helping to keep the smell of antiseptic down to a dull roar. There’s no mistaking that hospital bed, but everything else is done up like it’s a furnished room, not someone’s last hurrah in long-term care unit somewhere.

Donna’s grandfather wakes up at once and peers at them with watery blue eyes that are entirely lucid. Whatever he’s been up to in his life, he lucked out and skipped over any bit of dementia. “‘lo, sweetheart. I was starting to wonder if you were going to make it home today.”

“Oh, yeah. Just needed to feed my face first, get everyone collected, that sort.” Donna leans over and delivers a kiss to the old man’s forehead that is so filled to the brim with love that Aziraphale starts to get teary-eyed. “You all right?”

The old man smiles at Donna like she’s the most wonderful thing in the universe. “Oh, I’m fine. Really sick of being stuck in this ruddy bed, but them’s the breaks, I suppose.”

“Yeah.” Donna gives herself a good mental shake. “Wilfred Mott, Wilf to the types who’ve earned it, this is Aziraphale—” Aziraphale dips his chin and smiles like he’s decided to regress an entire bloody century. “—Israfil—” Israfil waggles his fingers in greeting. “—and that one sulking in the back corner is Crowley.”

“Cor, I can bloody well see what you mean,” Wilf says at once, his eyes darting between Israfil and Crowley. “I mean, it’s that man’s face down to every single angle.” The old man smiles. “Course, not the ginger part. He’d be right spare over that.”

“Wrong eye color,” Israfil says. “Aside from the ginger, anyway.”

“Yeah, but…” Wilf shakes his head. “Maybe you just need to see it—specially you over there. Crowley, you said?”

Crowley pushes off the wall to at least be in easier viewing distance, just in case Wilf’s eyes aren’t holding up very well. “Yeah, that’s me.”

Wilf raises both eyebrows. “It’s the hair and the voice, but especially that accent of yours, dropping off words like a local. Absolutely, it is. Wait, where are my bloody manners? First—thank you lot for saving my Donna, and don’t you dare say it weren’t nothing, because it means _everything_.”

Crowley glances away, trying not to scowl. He’s not used to that any longer, this being thanked like he deserves it.

Israfil, at least, makes up for it. “You’re welcome. I mean, I bumped into her, or vice versa, so it was sort of my fault, that meta-crisis thing acting up the way it did, anyway,” Israfil says. “Crowley’s the one who did the real work. I’m not up on current events, or current aliens, so I wasn’t certain what I was really trying to wade my way through.”

“The two of you are twins, then?” Wilf asks curiously. “Though you and the enunciation—that’s a bit different.”

“Yeah, we are. Well, mostly identical—Crowley, take off those bloody sunglasses,” Israfil orders. “Honestly.”

Crowley glares at Israfil and then slides them off, putting his glasses away. “Fine. Happy?”

“Oh, wow. That’s neat, that is,” Wilf says in apparently delight, which does help to calm Crowley’s desire to immediately slouch his way the hell out of this house. “I suppose that’s the _mostly _identical part, then?”

“I can match them to his,” Crowley mutters. “I just don’t…it’s not really my thing anymore.”

“Are you two related to the Doctor somehow?” Wilf asks curiously.

“_No,_” Crowley says at once.

“I really can’t see how we could be,” Israfil adds.

“We’re not really supposed to—to procreate. Outside of our own kind, I mean,” Aziraphale explains. “It caused too many problems once before, and it doesn’t seem to really be worth the risk now.”

Wilf nods, but he still looks thoughtful. “Donna, that locked box in my closet, top shelf. Fetch it for me, would you, sweetheart?”

“You mean the box I’m never supposed to open and bury with you when you die?” Donna smiles as she says it, but Crowley would have to be blind, deaf, and truly, utterly daft not to feel the hurt in those words. She opens the closet door in the room, which is home to some well-packed and organized clutter on shelves instead of disastrous piles everywhere. The box in question is a solid blue square of metal with a large hasp hiding the lock. “You know I’m just going to pick the lock when you decide to off and leave me, right?”

“Oh, we both knew you were the sort to try.” Wilf smiles as he takes the box. “You wouldn’t have gotten very far.”

Donna frowns. “Why not?”

Wilf lifts the hasp to reveal a very expensive optical reader. “Because I don’t see you prying out my eyeballs, love, and besides, it doesn’t work on dead tissue.” Wilf holds the box up with shaking hands as a green bit of light scans over his left eye. “The Doctor sent it to me when I told him I wanted to keep some of your things about, but they were the sort of things you shouldn’t be looking at.”

Donna looks shocked and on the verge of tears again. “You kept my things?”

Wilf is definitely miffed by that. “Why wouldn’t I? They were yours, and they meant the world to you!”

Donna presses both hands to her mouth as Wilf puts the box on his lap before opening the lid. “Well, come on, come over here. If you’re all right, Donna, then you can see all of this for yourself.” Wilf glances up. “It’s fine for the rest of you, too. I don’t mind a crowd. Don’t get out enough of late to be worried about crowds, anyway.”

Crowley peers over Israfil’s shoulder while keeping his brother between himself and that box, just in case it bites. He can feel Israfil’s amusement at Crowley’s paranoia, but he was on Earth when someone opened an entirely different sort of bloody box, and some things you just don’t forget.

“Oh, it’s bigger on the inside,” Donna says at once as a collection of objects are revealed, definitely more than that box should be capable of holding. “It’s a pocket dimension in a box.”

Israfil reaches out long enough to touch the lid. “I want one.”

“It requires a great _deal_ of mathematical, spatial, and dimensional knowledge, or else I would have done something a bit similar to my bookshop,” Aziraphale says. “Then I worried customers would get lost and I’d be stuck with them, so I decided it wasn’t worth the effort.”

“The Doctor wanted to be sure I could make it all fit, you know.” Wilf pulls out a mobile from the top that’s a decade out of date. “Kept your phone, too, sweetheart, but I dunno if it’ll hold a charge anymore.”

Donna accepts the mobile with a smile. “Yes! That means I can give his skinny arse a ring!”

“Be nice,” Wilf chastises her, but he’s too happy for it to be of much use. It’s like a warm glow in the room, and it’s really hard for Crowley to put aside the old habit of trying to get away from that rubbish as soon as possible.

Aziraphale reaches out and grips his hand. “It’s all right,” he murmurs.

“It’s _feelingsss_,” Crowley hisses back.

“You’ll survive the experience, my dear.”

“Ah, here it is!” Wilf pulls out a device that looks like nothing more than a slimmer and modern mobile phone, but the buttons are entirely foreign.

That’s the sort of thing Crowley itches to have a look at, wanting to know how much technology is going to improve. Then he sees the tiny brand emblem embedded on the backside of the device and grins. “Oh, hey, nice. That one’s going to be my fault.”

“What, TIftNG?” Wilf asks, turning the not-mobile over so he can glance at the emblem. “Never heard of them.”

“Not yet. Give it a few years, though,” Crowley says.

Aziraphale gives him a sharp look. “Is this that secret you’ve been hiding in Mayfair?”

“They’re not a secret, you just stop listening when I start talking about them because technology and numbers and mad science,” Crowley teases back. “I own the company, darling.”

“To do what?” Aziraphale asks, giving him a mildly suspicious look that doesn’t cover up the fact that he blushed over the endearment.

“To make things like that. Whatever it is—which is definitely shiny.”

“It’s a good bit of tech, yeah,” Wilf agrees. “This is what I wanted you to see. Think maybe it’ll help you lot understand why Donna and myself can’t quite stop staring at you.” He holds the mobile-like device flat in his hand so the screen points upward before he engages something. The result isn’t a two-dimensional flat image, but a perfect high-definition holographic display that appears to be entirely solid, not transparent in the slightest.

Crowley is not drooling at that sort of revolutionary display. Nope. He’s too distracted for it, anyway.

“Oh! Oh, I remember that,” Donna says as Crowley stares at the revealed holographic image. It’s true three-dimensional technology, not that nonsense with needing glasses that cinemas are trying out again. Even televisions got in on the game, this time, and it’s mostly just annoying. “It was a refueling stop, and sometimes those could take a couple of days, so I was…well, really bored.”

“Is that an alien ship? Like, legitimately?” Israfil asks while Crowley’s eyes drink in the organic structure of the inside. The lighting is bright from above and green from below, like someone had the ocean on their mind when it was being built. The console itself is purely technological, and possibly jury-rigged within an inch of its poor life, but the center—the center with its clear panes of glass has a hum he can feel in his bones even through a recording. That’s a machine that understands the flow of Time.

The brown-haired bloke that Crowley caught glimpses of in Donna’s thoughts is sitting on a chair before the console; the cushions on that chair or bench, whatever it is, look as if they fit the jury-rigged theme pretty well. Crowley touches his own hair while making a disgruntled face. That is definitely how he’s been keeping it styled since last spring, just after Warlock’s Nanny was dismissed due to Warlock’s _advanced_ age of almost-eleven.

The alien is younger, just like Crowley thought. His skin is rather more like Israfil’s for paleness (or maybe it’s just the lighting), but the Doctor’s eyes are a dark brown that matches his hair, obvious even with the occasional odd bit of reflected lights from the console. He’s also leaning back in his chair with his feet propped up on the console, eating from an open can with what looks like a bloody spork.

The suit is nice, Crowley grudgingly admits of the brown and pinstripe number, and the shirt beneath the jacket is some purple-blue metallic that he pulls off rather well. Those shoes, though—those deserve to be set on fire. You don’t wear that kind of suit and then strut around in bloody Converse trainers. Crowley finds that to be almost as offensive as the face-stealing. Borrowing. Whichever.

“Donna,” the Doctor says, and Crowley’s shoulders ride up with an involuntary cringe. Yeah, they’re right; the voice is spot on. “What on earth are you doing?”

“What’s it look like, sunshine? I’m recording you.”

The Doctor sticks the maybe-spork into the can and turns to look at the camera. Oh, sideburns. Crowley definitely would not go that route, but they suit that face fairly well. Same nose, same twitch of expression. What’s different, what makes Crowley unnerved, is the hint of fire lurking behind that brown-eyed gaze. This Doctor bloke is happy at the moment, but something within that man is burning, and it has no intention of stopping.

“Change of question, then: why are you recording me while I’m _eating?_” the Doctor asks. “It’s a bit weird.”

“Why are _you_ eating out of a bloody can?” the Donna in the recording counters. “I swear dealing with you is like dealing with a cat.”

The Doctor looks insulted. “I don’t say anything about your eating habits. It was in the pantry, the date wasn’t off, and we’re sort of stuck at the moment. I can’t exactly pop out for chips right now, can I?” he retorts. He shoves the spork loaded with whatever-that-is back into his mouth. “We’re back to the recording question,” is a bit muffled, but still entirely understandable.

“I dunno. Maybe I’m doing it for science.”

“Or maybe you’re just really bored,” the Doctor says, accurately, “since you’ve been absolutely out of patience with the TARDIS’s need to refuel as of twelve hours ago yesterday.” The Doctor resolutely turns his attention back to the mystery can and his spork.

“Yep, bored,” recorded Donna agrees. “You’ve got it. Totally am. So, I figured I’d spend my time being less bored, and went straight to science and posterity.”

The Doctor gives her an incredulous look that is also _really_ uncomfortably familiar. Crowley wants to sink into the floor, but Aziraphale probably won’t let him. Aziraphale looks far too entranced for his taste, too. “_Posterity?_”

“Well, yeah.” Donna sounds amused. “There’s only one Time Lord of Gallifrey left in the galaxy, sunshine. I’m recording him in his natural habitat now, while I still have the chance, since he’s got such a mouth on him that he’s going to open it one day and get himself killed. Then all we’ll have of your skinny arse is what I’ve recorded. For posterity, of course.”

The image of the Doctor stares at the camera for a moment before he starts laughing. “Donna Noble. You are something else.”

The Donna in the recording is smiling, pleased with herself; it’s in her voice. “Are you sayin’ that I’m wrong?”

“No. No, I didn’t say that at all.” The Doctor shakes his head again. “Really, though. Stop recording me trying to have lunch. That’s just…impolite. Probably. Impolite somewhere, at least.”

“Oh, fine—” The recording cuts off, the hologram disappearing back into the mobile-like device.

“See what I mean, gents?” Wilf puts the device back into the blue box. “It’s uncanny, it really is.”

“It’s disturbing,” Crowley says flatly. That feeling of missing something, of not remembering something so blasted important, is going to start driving him mad soon.

“Well, I’m going to get some answers.” Donna plugs in the old mobile with an available charging cord draped over the bedside table and grins. “Yeah, didn’t think a USB cable had changed all that much.” The mobile’s battery doesn’t even need to soak in enough power to start a true recharge cycle before the charging icon kicks on. “Havin’ a Time Lord play about with your mobile gives you certain improvements.” She turns the mobile on, which has a screen background that’s the same as the inside of that ship—minus any people involved, or the console. It’s just the organic climb and gentle green glow of those columns.

Donna scrolls through her contact list until she comes to one labeled DOCTOR and dials. She listens to it ring…and ring…and ring. “That’s odd.”

“It didn’t do that to me the last time I gave it a go. Wasn’t all that long ago, either. Went to voice mail, but it wasn’t an emergency, so I didn’t leave a message. Didn’t want him to think anything was wrong,” Wilf says.

“Yeah. Should’ve gone right to voice mail if he wasn’t picking up.” Donna frowns down at the mobile as she hangs up the call. “It _never_ just rings.”

“Maybe he’s not on your planet right now?” Aziraphale suggests.

“No, that doesn’t matter. It’s sort of rigged up to skip out on needing to concern itself with mobile phone towers, planets, or time,” Donna murmurs. “It’s a circuit that’s connected to the TARDIS.”

Crowley holds out his hand. “Let me see that. No, I’m not going to talk to the bastard,” he adds as Donna gives him another one of those _looks_ she’s so good at. “I need to hear the tone. Trust me, I’m sort of good at that.”

“He crashed every mobile phone network in London in August of 2008,” Aziraphale says in disapproval.

“Because I excelled at my job, thank you,” Crowley replies, dialing the number and listening. There are advantages to hearing what humans can’t, and that includes how a signal is being relayed along, hints and burbles of switches and re-routings that hide beneath the ringing.

Crowley listens to it for about three minutes before turning it off and handing the mobile back to Donna. “It’s ringing endlessly because that signal’s being bounced around the globe, relay to relay. It’s not going anywhere.”

“What’s that mean, then?” Wilf asks.

“Same,” Israfil adds.

“Wait a minute. Just in case.” Crowley pulls out his mobile and redials that _very_ long number on his phone, holding up one finger for quiet as he listens. The result is exactly the same. “Right. So, if your phone still works the way you said it does—and it feels weird, so I don’t doubt you—then something is blocking that signal from leaving the planet. That’s why it won’t stop bouncing around the Earth. It doesn’t know how to break through whatever’s in the way.”

Donna sits in quiet thought for a minute. “You said something felt wrong about time.”

“Yeah, and I know my luck. There is no way that feeling and this signal block aren’t related.” Crowley sighs and shoves his mobile back in his jacket pocket. If he incidentally now also has a Time Lord’s number recorded on his mobile, that’s his business.

“Oh—oh, Granddad,” Donna says sadly. Crowley looks over to find that the old man has fallen asleep, the open box still on his lap. Donna rescues the box from his lap, giving him another kiss on the forehead as she bends over, and then she puts the box on a nearby table. “For when he wakes up, so he doesn’t think he had a one-off dream about it or something,” she explains.

Aziraphale abandons Crowley to go give her a warm pat on the shoulder. “I’m so sorry, my dear.”

Donna sniffs and then quickly wipes her eyes with her sleeves. “Oh, thanks. But I know how it is. That’s just life, right?”

Israfil glances at Crowley. _You know, we could make a suggestion._

_No, you can make a suggestion,_ Crowley responds, feeling a vague crawling sense of unease about all of it.

_Do you think it’s a bad idea?_

_No, not that._ Crowley grimaces. _It’s just a bit weird. Like going against the natural order of things._

Israfil rolls his eyes. _She’s carrying around alien energy. So is he, if I’m reading that right. It’s just of a different sort._

Crowley snaps his eyes back over to Wilf. He’d forgotten all about the timeline bit and the old man’s ability to remember both. He studies Wilf’s body, glances at Donna, and then checks again. “What was the name of that other energy you were babbling about? Not Time Lord glowing stuff, but the other one.”

“Oh. Artron energy—” Donna’s eyes widen. “He’s got artron energy, doesn’t he?”

Crowley nods. “Yeah. Same as you. Not nearly as much, but it’s there.”

“That means he’s been on the TARDIS, even if it was just a brief trip.” Donna sits back down on her grandfather’s bed. “That means _anyone_ with artron energy is going to remember both timelines. They won’t be able to help it; it’ll just be a thing that happens because of how that energy sort of…makes you aware of time. Not necessarily reading time, I mean. It just—it keeps the idea of it in your head.”

“Like a recording,” Israfil realizes. “It’s a record of where you’ve been, and _when _you’ve been, so even if that record changes, you don’t lose it.”

Israfil doesn’t have to voice his mad idea. Donna does it for him. “You said I’m carrying around the equivalent of an extra bloody lifetime thanks to those Time Lord leftovers. Can you give part of that to my grandfather?”

Crowley slaps himself in the face. “Israfil already had that thought. I think you shouldn’t, but I’m a selfish bastard who wants to see as much of existence as possible.”

Donna gives him a cautious look, trying to hide a bit of concern. “It’s not as much fun, though, not if you’re seeing it alone. I know I can’t have my granddad forever. No one’s really built for that—no one human, anyway, I suppose. But I’ve lost so much, and I’m not ready to let him go just yet. If that energy can be shared, I’d happily give it to him.”

“What, all of it?” Crowley asks. Aziraphale looks bothered by the notion, too, even if it’s fairly close to being a bloody miracle.

“No! No.” Donna smiles briefly. “Granddad wouldn’t thank me for that. He misses my grandmother somethin’ fierce. I just mean…twenty years? He could do another twenty and just be unusual instead of standing out, doing something implausible. You know how us Brits are about our centennials.”

“If we do this, it’s not an instant fix. He’d still need to recover from…” Israfil trails off. “Well.”

Donna understands what he means, anyway. “He’s that close, is he?”

Israfil nods. “Yes. Very.”

“Azrael is probably going to be so very cross,” Aziraphale frets. “But well, he can cope, I suppose.”

“You do it,” Crowley tells Israfil. “It’s not—my control isn’t that good right now. I’d botch it. I’m too fucking distracted.”

Israfil gives Crowley an intent look before nodding. “Then yes, that can probably be done. You’re going to want another nap after this, though,” he tells Donna.

Donna makes an amused sound. “It’ll be a weekend of napping, then, I don’t care. I just…I can’t lose him. Not yet. Besides, once that’s done, all I want is to just sit at home for a few days and figure out how to be me again—how to be _all _of me.”

“I need air,” Crowley says. He gives Aziraphale a brief look that he knows his angel will understand and exits the bedroom, quickly finding his way down the stairs and into the back garden. It’s a bit greener than the front, but all of the landscaping’s gone wild. None of it’s dying, though; pleasant bonus, that.

_You don’t like it when people die._

_I don’t like it when people die before their time. It’s a waste. It’s always a waste._

That woman’s brown eyes had been quite a bit similar to the man in that recording. Color and shape were a bit off, but that fire was still there. It was just banked, gentler, as if whatever had been driving the initial mad burn had the chance to calm down a bit.

If Israfil hadn’t been here, and Crowley was still capable of knowing how…he’d be doing what Donna asked. She’s right; twenty years is nothing, not against the whole of the universe.

Crowley catches movement at the rear of the garden and snaps his focus forward. There is a humanoid standing there, cloaked in shadow and darkness that seems to reach out and soak up all of the surrounding sunlight.

“Tenebris Mulierem,” Crowley whispers. His wings flare out, instinctive defence and defiance.

The demon lifts her hand and blows him a kiss. He can hear her terrible laughter.

“Crowley? Crowley!”

Crowley opens his eyes to realize he’s staring up at the sky overhead, as well as Aziraphale, who looks a bit panicked. “Oh, hi—ow.” He reaches back and rubs the back of his head. He caught himself on the tiled walk when he fell over backwards.

“My dear, what happened?” Aziraphale asks as he helps Crowley to stand back up. The ground doesn’t feel right under his feet. “You’re as pale as a ghost. More accurately, you’re currently paler than your brother!”

“She was here.” Crowley wipes at his nose and isn’t much surprised when his hand comes away with a smear of fresh blood. “That’s really not good.”

Aziraphale grabs for Crowley’s arm when he staggers off to the side. “Good Heavens. Who was here, Crowley?”

“Tenebris Mulierem.” Crowley’s eyes dart around the whole of the back garden, but she’s gone. There isn’t a hint of darkness or stolen light. “The Woman who Lurks in the Dark.”

“I’ve only ever heard legends about her.” Aziraphale’s wings appear, each individual eye opening with a hint of bright gold as he looks about them in every sense of the word. “What did she want?”

“Nothing—no. Wait.” Crowley rubs at his temple, feeling words form in his head. Fuck, but he really doesn’t like that woman. “She did say something. She just left it behind as a memento instead of using bloody words like a normal person.”

Aziraphale draws in his wings and shakes his head. “I don’t see anything. She is most certainly gone. What did she say?”

Crowley feels a chill gather beneath his skin. The words feel like an echo of something that’s already happened, even though he’s never heard them before. “She said the Darkness is coming.”


	4. Crackpot Theory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Talk about the stupid book already, okay?”
> 
> “I thought it was crackpot at the time because the author, one Benjamin Malcolm Davis, is all but waxing poetic about a conspiracy regarding a specific individual, one with different faces but the same name, who shows up all throughout human history.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep, there was a rating change with this chapter (and on the fic as a whole) so mind the new Mature Rating, kiddos! Also: THIS IS NOT MY FAULT. I was going to be good about the things and the stuff and then THESE TWO INEFFABLE DORKS decided they had OTHER IDEAS.

Donna is definitely a bit out of it when Crowley tries to speak to her. “You wanna carve runes all over my doorways,” she says. “I just watched your brother swipe gold energy out of my hand and give it to my granddad, and now you wanna carve runes on my doorways.”

Crowley nods. “Character flaw, remember? I don’t like people dying for reasons that aren’t their fault, and someone was just out in your garden who you really don’t ever want to meet.”

Donna frowns. “Can you fix it afterwards? Whatever is wrong? I mean fixing the runes so my doorways aren’t a mess. Because right now, I gotta tell you, sunshine, my Latin and my brain are not up to translating whatever it is you’re worried about.”

“Yeah, fine. Just give me permission to ward your fucking house, all right?”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale starts to interrupt, but then Donna nods, so he decides that blunt rudeness served just as well as good manners in this instance.

“Excellent. Get some rest. Also, call me if you see anything weird. Anything at all,” Crowley adds. “My number is saved in your mobile.”

“Mister Tetchy gave me his mobile number.” Donna smirks. “I’m gonna call that one a miracle. G’night, sunshine.”

“Yeah, yeah, fuck off,” Crowley mutters, but he’s smiling. “Aziraphale, take care of the front door, please.”

“Of course, my dear. Strongest we can manage, I take it?”

Crowley looks slightly distracted, but nods. “If you can manage the sort that’ll set anything demonic ablaze with holy fire if they try to get in here? I won’t say a word.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale tries not to swallow. “You’re really concerned about this particular demon, aren’t you?”

“Angel, she knocked me on my arse without even trying. Yes, I’m _really concerned_ about this particular demon!”

When Aziraphale is done with the front door, he wanders to the rear door for the back garden to discover Israfil finishing up the wards for that particular door. “Shouldn’t we worry about the windows, too?” Israfil asks.

Aziraphale studies the runes that Israfil used and then adds one right at the top. “There. That particular rune turns everything into a sort of all-purpose protection regarding any opening that’s capable of allowing entry into this house. Placing them in the front and the back just means they reinforce each other.”

“Thanks, I’d forgotten that one. Want to go see what my brother did to the garden?”

“Oh, dear,” Aziraphale murmurs, but follows Israfil outside. Crowley has his arms crossed, his sunglasses on his face, and looks rather out of sorts. He has also surrounded the house with a glowing ring of ethereal fire. “Crowley?”

“Not quite done yet, might want to stay there. I’m missing something.” Crowley holds out one finger as he traces the runes running from the side of the house out to the garden, before they circle back around to envelop the whole of the property. “Right there.” He flicks his fingers at it, and the ring of fire vanishes. “Done.”

“The doorway protections are just a precaution, then?” Israfil asks curiously.

“If something gets through this first circle, they can also get through anything. The protections on the doors are just meant to slow them down long enough for one of those two to give us a ring so we can, theoretically, be here in time to save their arses.” Crowley’s tongue darts out long enough to taste the air. “Eh, could always just pop through the phone lines again. That’s fast enough.”

“Speak for yourself.” Aziraphale has traveled in that manner exactly once, in 1973, and he’d_ hated _it. Now phone lines can transmit data at exceptional speeds, and it isn’t to his taste in the slightest. Though…needs must, he supposes. “Shall we go?”

“Yeah.” Crowley leads the way back to the Bentley, but he’s keeping an eye out for danger in a way Aziraphale hasn’t witnessed since the day after the Not-Apocalypse, when they were waiting for Heaven and Hell to make their respective moves against them.

“Who is this demon?” Aziraphale asks once they’re in the car, on their way back to Soho. “This Tenebris Mulier—”

Crowley shakes his head while hissing in warning. “Don’t say her name.”

“All right, then. Who _was_ she?” Israfil asks. He’s sprawled out in the back seat instead of sitting up properly, doing something with his mobile.

“I don’t remember. I remember when she died during the war, but after reincorporation, she was never the same.” Crowley takes a moment to yell at traffic, but without his usual vicious enjoyment of the act. “I don’t even remember what killed her. I only remember that she Fell, and she seemed really fond of the idea when it happened.”

“What is she capable of?” Aziraphale asks. “If we don’t have the former, then the latter would be useful information, dear.”

Crowley glances at Aziraphale. “No one really knows.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale doesn’t like that nervous feeling in the pit of his stomach, not in the slightest. They went into the Apocalypse with more information than this. “Well, that’s reassuring.”

“I always just did my best to avoid her, which is what most of Hell does. Something about her is just…different. Wrong. I don’t know. Never wanted to find out, either.”

“Okay, different question,” Israfil speaks up. “What Darkness is coming?”

Crowley turns around in his seat long enough to glare at Israfil. “Do you have any idea how much that does _not_ narrow things down?”

Aziraphale winces as the Bentley slots itself between two vehicles and a set of pedestrians, somehow without anyone dying. “Please just drive the car, dear.”

“Fine. Bookshop?” Crowley asks.

Aziraphale notes the way Crowley’s hands are white-knuckling the steering wheel. “For now, yes, but I’ll come by later this evening and stay the night, if you like.” Crowley’s hands loosen their grip, and Aziraphale congratulates himself for reading the situation correctly. “I want to finish checking the books in my possession for references to—well, to everything,” he says. “A Doctor, Time Lords, this Tenebris, and a possible approaching Darkness.” He doesn’t expect it to take very long; he has most of his own collection memorized. The iffy parts are Adam’s replacements, not to mention a few books he purchased here and there over the years that he still hasn’t gotten around to reading. “Afterwards, I think a trip to the Library may be in order.”

“All right. I’ll wait for you before heading off to the Library, then,” Crowley says. “Israfil?”

“Well, there isn’t a bloody thing out on the internet that’s official regarding this Doctor person, or aliens, or roaming pepper pots, but there are a _lot_ of Reddit pages devoted to the first three, not to mention YouTube.” Israfil leans forward with his mobile in one hand. “New Year’s Day 2019, last year. This was taken by someone who was probably risking their idiot lives just to get the video.”

Aziraphale glances at the video, which is paused on the image of one of the alien pepper pots. Sort of, anyway; this one looks like it might have run into a Victorian steam train somewhere along the way. “Oh, dear. I was rather hoping they would never come back.”

“It’s like a pepper pot went steampunk,” Crowley notes derisively.

“Is there any other information?” Aziraphale asks. He supposes steampunk is accurate enough. He doubts the slight change in appearance made the roving alien pepper pot any less deadly.

“I know you’re never supposed to read the comments, but if I ignore half of these, the rest are useful,” Israfil replies. “They’re calling this particular pepper pot a confirmed alien sighting with casualties, but there’s an odd undercurrent in their words. It’s like people want to remember exactly what this thing is, but they can’t quite make it that far.” He pulls the phone back for a moment. “This is the other thing,” he says, and then he shows Aziraphale and Crowley the next frozen video frame.

Aziraphale studies the image of a woman who has what appears to be utterly sun-bleached brown hair and suntanned skin. He can’t make out many details, as the shot is distant and fuzzy, but she appears to be wearing a very large hooded grey coat over blue clothing.

Crowley sees it and then lets out a huff of annoyance. “Yeah. That’s her. I remember that bloody not-rainbow on her shirt.”

“This is the most recent image anyone has of the Doctor, and considering how the internet is comparing notes, I think it’s literally the most recent version of them,” Israfil says. “There is an older bloke who—honestly, that man needed so much therapy, and that’s only from what I could see in a few shoddy pictures. Then there is another man, who is even younger than the one walking about with our face. Gabriel would be jealous of this man’s chin.”

“Great. Is there anything else about him?” Crowley asks.

“Israfil?” Aziraphale turns a bit in his seat when Israfil remains silent. “What is it?”

“Rage,” Israfil finally says. “This one was so very angry. He kept smiling because if he didn’t, he was going to be screaming. I wouldn’t want to meet that one.”

“Wonder what happened to him, then?” Crowley mutters, and then hisses at the traffic trying to block their way. “Fucking A4. I’m so glad I didn’t have anything to do with you!”

“Given what happened to Donna, and the timeframe of when the first photos of that one seem to be turning up?” Israfil tucks his mobile into his jacket. “I think that particular corporation of the Doctor had just lost everything, and he didn’t have any idea what to do about it.”

“Crowley, just please go ’round the Square instead of your usual route!” Aziraphale insists before Crowley can make the turn. “You’re really beginning to give Soho traffic bad ideas, and I’d like very much for this corporation not to be run over by a car!”

Crowley releases an aggravated sigh. “Fine! Besides, if anyone runs you over with a car, they’re not going to live long enough to regret it.”

“Dear, that is very sweet, but you’re now playing for the team that would be more concerned with fixing the situation than avenging my death,” Aziraphale says in gentle reminder.

Crowley scowls. “I’m sorry, did you somehow miss six thousand years of religious bloodshed?”

Aziraphale rubs his thumbs together, frowning in consideration. “Very well. If it was intentionally done, then you may avenge my temporary death all you like.”

Crowley rolls his eyes as he pulls up at the corner in front of the bookshop. “_Thank_ you.”

Aziraphale smiles, leans over, and presses a kiss to Crowley’s cheek. “Thank you very much for the ride, dear. I’ll see you later tonight.”

* * * *

Aziraphale arrives later than he thought he would, around nine in the evening. He doesn’t have a key for Crowley’s flat; the door simply lets him in if he turns the knob. Immediately, he hears Crowley’s voice, and knows from the tone that Crowley is on the phone.

“Yes, I really mean it,” Crowley is saying as Aziraphale approaches the small office-like area in the flat. “Portable technology capable of generating a three-dimensional display that looks just as solid as if you’re viewing it on a high-def two-dimensional screen.”

“Wait, wait.” Aziraphale raises both eyebrows in surprise when he realizes the call is on speaker. The voice is male and unfamiliar, sort of bass nasal, which is an interesting combination. He suspects someone needs a significant increase on their allergy medication. “Hold on a mo, Boss. I have to stop drooling first.”

“Yeah, I kinda had that response to the idea, too, Bran,” Crowley replies. He looks up and smiles at Aziraphale, and Aziraphale feels his insides try to melt in utter bliss. Good Heavens, it was _just_ a smile, but Crowley pours so much easy affection into it!

“I know it’s not something we could necessarily make right now, Bran, but I mean—is it possible?”

“Uhm…well, they’re already working on improving projections, and there was that bit about how Hewlett-Packard was going to work on transparent panel touchscreens a few years back,” Bran rambles. “I don’t know how much progress they made on that form of projection, but touchscreen technology has certainly improved in the meantime—”

Crowley makes a disgruntled face. “Too much information. Narrow that down to yes or no.”

“I’m going to narrow it down to _maybe_,” Bran says. “I mean, that’s a hell of a lot of research, but I’m not going to rule it out. If it is possible, it might take a few years. Maybe a decade, I dunno. We’ve been working on other things, not any sort of visual tech.”

Crowley nods. “That’s about what I expected to hear.”

“I’d want to devote an entire section of staff to it, and we don’t have those resources. I’d be pulling everyone off of other projects, just to start—”

Crowley rolls his eyes. “You lot really don’t ever look at your budget, do you?”

“No, Boss, because budgets are evil,” Bran returns promptly. “Why?”

“Yeah, never mind. Look, write up a proposal of what you need for looking into this sort of thing—and I mean write up what you need, not what you think I want to hear,” Crowley tells him in what sounds like a pointed reminder. “Be specific, don’t leave anything out.”

“Can do. We’re going to need more space, though. We’ve maxed out in Mayfair.”

“I’ll take care of that part. It was something I considered when I acquired you lot, anyway,” Crowley says. “You don’t have a problem with spreading out, do you?”

“What, having another branch in a different city?” Bran asks in surprise. “Not really. I mean, mobiles and video-conferencing exist, Boss. I’d maybe keep the weather and mass transit in mind, but otherwise, who cares?”

“And that’s why I like you.” Crowley leans back in his chair. “We could always offend Wales and put the second branch in Cardiff.”

“Not sure that counts as offensive so much as Wales waving and laughing at us because now they have even more of England’s money,” Bran says dryly. “Cardiff is expensive though, Boss.”

Crowley snorts. “So’s London. Where’ve you been? Look, it’s late, I have company, and by the way, your wife is ready to tear out bits of your backside with those scary fingernails of hers, so you might want to go home with a peace offering.”

“You know, it’s really terrifying when you just _know_ that, but it’s probably saving my marriage, so I’m not complaining. Night, Boss.”

“Night.” Crowley picks up his mobile and ends the call. “Find anything?”

“Actually, yes.” Aziraphale holds up a rather musty-smelling book. He takes better care of his books, but this was a second-hand find, and he hasn’t yet found a replacement in better condition. “Unfortunately, I had nothing about Time Lords, Tenebris, or any sort of Darkness beyond the usual biblical nonsense, but I did remember where I’d read about the Doctor before. This is a bit of turn-of-the-century crackpot theory—well, turn of the previous century, anyway. It was for entertainment purposes at the time.”

“Why were you reading that? I mean, aside from the fact that it existed,” Crowley asks as he leads them to the sofa. Aziraphale is quietly thrilled, because that means absolute comfort and slouched touching that Crowley doesn’t even think about; he merely does.

“You were in Europe, nudging things about in order to prepare for World War I.” Aziraphale restrains a sigh when Crowley’s shoulders slump. “I still don’t blame you.”

“I know. Talk about the stupid book already, okay?”

“All right.” Aziraphale waits until they’re settled, and to his absolute joy, Crowley rests his head against Aziraphale’s thigh as he sprawls out along the rest of the sofa. “I thought it was crackpot at the time because the author, one Benjamin Malcolm Davis, is all but waxing poetic about a conspiracy regarding a specific individual, one with different faces but the same name, who shows up all throughout human history.”

Crowley clicks his tongue. “Yeah, he’d definitely be relegated to the crockpot pile. It’d be like someone trying to prove that all the images of Christ and the Virgin Mary in their breakfast foods was really miraculous instead of just burnt food. Or if someone tried to prove that we’d been here the entire time.”

“That would be much more difficult. We’re quite capable of remaining off of humanity’s radar,” Aziraphale says. Crowley is much better at remaining completely unnoticed than Aziraphale, but they were so often in each other’s company that it ultimately didn’t matter so much. “Mister Davis was so certain of his theory that he put a significant amount of money into the publishing of this book, Crowley. He convinced the printer to include photographs, and at the time, that just wasn’t done.”

“No, that was really fucking expensive,” Crowley agrees, tilting his head to glance up at Aziraphale. “Like what?”

“Well…like this.” Aziraphale turns to the first page he marked, which is black-and-white photograph of a wall covered in ancient Hieratic Egyptian. “There isn’t a picture of any sort to go with it, but the name is obvious enough.”

Crowley narrows his eyes at the Hieratic. “Does that really say, ‘The Doctor, Master of Space and Time, kidnapped The Most Beautiful Nefertiti, Queen of All the Worlds and Goddess on Earth, but was considerate enough to bring our Queen home directly?’”

Aziraphale smiles. “I had a good laugh over that, but yes, that’s what it says. The fact that they were so specific to spell out _doctor_ rather than _healer_ is what truly gained my attention. Oh, and Queen Neferneferuaten issued him a royal pardon and full noble titles afterwards, with the declaration that the Doctor was always to be welcomed and beloved by all of Egypt.”

“That’s impressive. I wonder what the hell the Doctor wanted with Nefertiti in the first place?”

“It doesn’t say, and I don’t think I want to consider the possibilities.” Aziraphale turns to the next photograph he’d marked. “Mister Davis, crackpot or not, really needed an editor. It’s harder to convince your audience of your theory if you don’t keep your history in the correct order. Also, he was quite certain that the Doctor was God randomly appearing on Earth, which helped nothing at all.”

Crowley laughs aloud. “No, that’s self-sabotage right there. I almost feel sorry for the bastard.” He peers at the photographed clay tablet as Aziraphale holds out the book. “Someone hung about in Sumer long enough to be noticed. Ohhh, they made friends with Enheduanna. That wasn’t an easy thing to do.”

“She was a bit touchy, yes,” Aziraphale agrees. “Quite lovely though, if I recall.”

“Haughty. The term you are looking for is _haughty_,” Crowley drawls, stretching out his legs so that his denims ruck up along his ankles, revealing his bare feet. The tattoo on his right foot is hidden, as usual, but Aziraphale doesn’t mind. He knows exactly what it looks like.

“Yes, dear. This one is a photograph of the man in question, turn of the century.” Aziraphale holds out the book again.

Crowley sounds baffled. “Is that man wearing a _fez?_”

“I’m afraid so. It seems as if the Doctor’s sense of fashion varies wildly from acceptable to a bit…colorful,” Aziraphale says.

“It’s a fez and a suit. Just…” Crowley shakes his head. “At least he was wearing normal bloody shoes. When was that taken?”

“1899, the Second Boer War,” Aziraphale answers. “The messier one.”

“The genocidal one, you mean.” Crowley stretches out so his right arm is draped down Aziraphale’s legs. “What’s he supposed to be doing there?”

“According to Mister Davis’s research, Donna’s friend was verbally tearing the commanding officer of that particular British garrison a new one for being…overenthusiastic.”

Crowley’s voice is flat and angry. “Good.”

“And then there is this, which is a bit less fraught.” Aziraphale hands over the book this time, so Crowley can have a longer, careful look. “This is a private photograph taken around 1858 by William Talbot, the man who helped to create calotype photography. Mister Davis acquired it through means that sounded quite underhanded, to be honest.”

“That’s Donna,” Crowley notes at once. “She’s a bit distinctive, even if it’s a dark photograph. Anachronistic on the clothing, too, but it was still a dress, so I suppose that was safe enough.”

“And if I didn’t know better, I’d say that was you,” Aziraphale adds.

“Pfft,” Crowley comments, but continues to study the picture. “Bloody Time Lords certainly get around, don’t they?”

“They do seem to, yes,” Aziraphale agrees, retrieving the book long enough to flip to the next useful image. “It really doesn’t have the same impact in black and white, I think, but this is a silk tapestry from Japan, created during the reign of Emperor Kōmyō. I’d love to see the original, but Mister Davis didn’t mention the tapestry’s name or current location.”

“Never met that particular emperor.” Crowley regards the photograph. “Haven’t seen that version of this Doctor before, either. Cropped hair, jacket, trousers…eh, at least he knew how to dress. Different friends, too.”

“The painted characters to describe them are a bit odd. They name the Doctor, but they don’t give the two traveling with him human names, just titles. They call the black-haired man the Trickster—”

“I bet he’s fun,” Crowley says.

“—but they call the blonde woman the Bad Wolf.”

Crowley sits up a bit. “Japan had wolves?”

“Japan had two types of wolf until they were both driven into extinction over a century ago, but at the time of this painting, they were still prevalent on the islands.” Aziraphale hadn’t been there for the loss of two intriguing species, but he’d been reading naturalist tomes from the moment the idea was invented, and thus remembers the event in question. “What’s odd about her title is that the Japanese, even in that era, regarded the wolf as a protective spirit.”

“So, to be specifying _bad_…”

Aziraphale nods. “They might’ve found her to be a bit terrifying, yes. I think it’s definitely worth a trip to the Library, don’t you?”

“Mm. Maybe in a bit. I developed nefarious plans for this evening that don’t involve books.”

“Oh?” Aziraphale flushes pink, but he can’t help it. It’s _Crowley_, and at this point it’s almost become an autonomic response. He leans forward just long enough to put the old book onto the coffee table. “I thought you’d given up on that sort of thing.”

“Well, can’t fall out of practice, can I? Never know when you might need that sort of skill.” Crowley smiles up at him, lazy and languid. “Course, it’s the sort of nefarious planning that requires at least two people.”

“At least?” Aziraphale sputters out a laugh. “Two is much simpler. Otherwise things might get out of hand.”

Crowley abruptly gets up and straddles Aziraphale’s lap, leaning over him so their noses are almost touching. “Am I going too fast for you?” he whispers, dipping down so that his tongue flicks over Aziraphale’s lips.

Aziraphale shivers. “No. Never.”

“Really.” Crowley rests his hands on Aziraphale’s shoulders and leans back so he can focus on Aziraphale’s eyes. “I seem to recall hearing something different in 1967.”

Aziraphale swallows and untucks Crowley’s shirt, sliding his fingers up the smooth skin of Crowley’s back. “I lied.”

Crowley’s eyes flutter closed as Aziraphale brushes his fingertips along the parts of his shoulders where his wings are hiding. “Why would you go and do something stupid like that for?”

“Because I was afraid.” Aziraphale leans forward and plants a kiss against the column of Crowley’s throat. “Not of you. Not ever of you, even when I should have been. It’s that I was never quite cautious enough. I knew that if I slipped up, it wouldn’t be me who would pay the price.” He opens his mouth further, tasting salt, serpentine warmth, and a hint of sweat on Crowley’s skin. “So I said it was too fast, and broke my own foolish heart in the process.”

“You’ve never said.” Crowley lowers his head when Aziraphale raises his, their lips meeting in a warm, soft kiss. “You idiot.”

“Mm.” Aziraphale resists the urge to pull Crowley closer, knowing it could ruin their entire evening. Sometimes it was all right; mostly it wasn’t. “I’m afraid you did not fall in love with the most intelligent angel available.”

Crowley’s tongue darts into Aziraphale’s mouth, a quick, brief moment that still draws a startled gasp from his lungs. “You didn’t fall for the most intelligent demon, either. Ex-demon. Whatever. Any particular requests?”

“Please get this shirt out of my way. You wear such ridiculously tight clothing, Crowley.”

Crowley sits back long enough to pull the shirt up and off, dropping it to the floor. “Are you complaining? I really don’t think you are. I know how many times I’ve caught you staring at my arse—”

“Next request: shut up,” Aziraphale says, silencing them both with another kiss. They could kiss for hours without breathing, but the strength of it, the _feeling_ behind it, always seems to drive any hint of oxygen from his body until he feels like he’s drowning for air.

Crowley’s nimble fingers do away with his bow-tie and the first buttons of Aziraphale’s shirt. Then his hands slide along Aziraphale’s neck, over his shoulders, and down to gently brush along Aziraphale’s shoulder blades. It isn’t just physical, but also an ethereal sweep of fingers that runs along Aziraphale’s feathers and makes him shiver again.

“You are driving me to madness,” Crowley murmurs against his lips. “I can sssmell you and it’sss _amazzzing_. How do humansss ssstand it? How can they cope with thessse ssscents without losssing their mindsss all the bloody time?”

“Dear, you have quite the advantage over normal humans with your olfactory senses. Even I can’t smell the specifics of what you mean without…”

“Flooding a room with it?” Crowley bites the side of his neck, just sharp enough to be pleasurable pain. “A multitude of messy orgasms?”

Aziraphale whimpers, his fingers tightening on Crowley’s shoulders. “Oh, just one is usually enough.”

He experiences a brief flare of frustration and tells it to politely bugger off. They haven’t actually managed to get to that point together, not yet. It isn’t just Crowley’s issues with being touched—worse if there is even the slightest feeling of entrapment during intimate moments, physical or otherwise—but Crowley’s senses. Aziraphale’s corporation doesn’t shapeshift, doesn’t really know anything except how human senses translate the physical word. Crowley’s senses are transmutable, most often embodied by the capacity of a serpent to taste/scent the air.

They can’t get to the orgasm part because halfway through the process, Crowley is usually completely overwhelmed and on the verge of blacking out from sensory overload.

“I’m _really_ sssorry,” Crowley says against Aziraphale’s skin, still nuzzling along on whatever interesting trail of scent he’s following.

“Not your fault, my dear,” Aziraphale assures him. “It’s actually quite flattering—no. It’s _amazing_.”

Crowley chuckles against Aziraphale’s collarbone. “What, that you literally break my brain?”

“Mm. The famous Serpent of Eden, brought low by the scent of human orgasms. If I’d known that was all it would take to thwart you, I would have been much more efficient at the job by Athens! In fact, I’m not certain how you ever coped with the Greeks at all.”

“Ssstop!” Crowley’s shoulders are shaking as he laughs. “No. Besides, human orgasmsss are boring. Yours, however…”

Aziraphale leans back, smiling. “And when have you ever experienced that scent?”

“Well, right now, your trousssers are damp, which isss a ssscent that’sss really not helping with the thinking,” Crowley admits. Aziraphale sighs as his cheeks heat up with another blasted blush. “But remember about two weeksss ago, you ssstayed over, usssed my shower, went on your way to the bookssshop?”

Aziraphale blinks a few times. “I’ve done so more than once of late, but yes. Why?”

Crowley gives him a sly look that doesn’t hide the fact that his eyes are starting to glaze over. “Becaussse, Aziraphale, you masssturbated in my ssshower. I might’ve been in there for a while. Afterward. Incapable of thinking. Thought you’d done it on purpossse.”

Aziraphale feels his eyes widen in surprise. “Er—no! No, that wasn’t on purpose. I actually thought the steam and the water would, er, uhm…dissipate. That.”

Crowley’s tongue flicks out to lick his own upper lip. “Mmm. Nope. All. Day. Long. That’sss how long it lingersss when you do that.”

“Oh. Oh, dear.” Aziraphale swallows down a heavy lump in his throat that is as much want as it is concern. “What about this, then?” he asks, because his corporation has been making it rather clear (and damp) that this is an excellent way to spend the evening. “Does that linger, as well?”

“Not asss long. A few hoursss, maybe.” Crowley draws in a deep breath, lets it out, and then nuzzles the side of Aziraphale’s face. “Told you. Nerfariousss plansss.”

“Oh!” Aziraphale’s grin of realization is probably quite foolish-looking. “Immersion therapy!”

“I’m an idiot, but alssso a healer,” Crowley confirms smugly. “Don’t know if I’ll ever be asss fond of it asss you, but…I want to. With you. Without the broken brain part.”

“You already sound broken, my dear.” Aziraphale cups Crowley’s face with one hand before letting his fingers drift into the messy spikes of Crowley’s hair.

“You ssstarted it by talking about orgasssmsss.” Crowley’s eyes drift half-shut, revealing a sliver of gold between his eyelashes. “Ussselesss bloody putty.”

“Hmm. Well, if you’re practicing the newfound human realization of immersion therapy, then I suppose we should try pushing boundaries without my touching you.” Aziraphale keeps his tone thoughtful, but that is very difficult given the flush of heat that is rushing through all of his limbs. “The Library can wait until tomorrow, I think. Tonight, we should both be in your bedroom, and…”

Bother. Aziraphale knows he is likely turning bright red, but if he can’t share this with Crowley, then it might well stymy the entire relationship—and he doesn’t want that. Not ever. “And I should masturbate. While you’re nearby.”

Crowley’s eyes open wide as he stares down at Aziraphale. His eyes are solid gold, not a bit of sclera to be seen. When he asks the question, it isn’t merely hesitant, but verging on trepidation. “Can…can I watch?”

Aziraphale has to take a steadying breath when that drowning feeling returns to his lungs. That is a bit further than he meant. If Crowley has issues with confinement, anything _sticky_, and sensory overload, then Aziraphale is still not…well, a failure of self-confidence in an angel is silly. Displeasure in one’s own corporation is_ completely_ ridiculous.

Crowley’s brow furrows. “Don’t sssay yesss.” He frowns and shakes his head. “Don’t say yes,” he enunciates without the hissing, “if you’re not ready. You’d tell me the same thing.”

“You’re right. I would.” Aziraphale lifts one of Crowley’s hands to his mouth and kisses the cool skin of his knuckles. “A compromise, then?”

“We’ve been doing that for six thousand years. Why stop now?”

“We have, haven’t we?” Aziraphale considers Crowley’s hand, gently spreads Crowley’s fingers, and then licks Crowley’s index finger from hand to fingertip. Crowley’s eyes glaze over so fast he nearly cants over sideways on the sofa.

“Cheating. Ssso much cheating. You’ve ssspent too much time with me. No. You haven’t ssspent enough time with me. More cheating. Ssso called for,” Crowley babbles.

“The compromise,” Aziraphale says in quiet amusement, “is that this time…please, I couldn’t manage it with you watching me perform the act itself. But next time…”

“Wait, more than onccce? I am immediately fine with thisss,” Crowley interrupts. “Why are we not in my bedroom already, why are you not _moving_?”

Aziraphale does something he usually avoids, if only because Crowley tends to cling with every single limb he has. He grasps Crowley around the waist and lifts them both as he stands up. “See? Moving?” he says, trying not to sound strangled as one of Crowley’s flailing arms immediately curls around his throat.

“Warn me next time!” Crowley growls after he’s completely wrapped around Aziraphale in an awkward jumble of limbs.

“Maybe,” Aziraphale agrees. Crowley swears under his breath in ways that sound more like endearments than slander.

Aziraphale has gotten used to keeping a set of soft cotton pyjamas in the flat for when he stays the night, even if he only spends the night reading while Crowley curls around him in his sleep. He changes clothes with the tiniest nudge of a miracle, something he’s gotten rather used to in recent decades. After Crowley does the same, still swearing, they slide into Crowley’s deliciously decadent bed. With the lights out, the glow of London is all that illuminates the room.

Taking himself in hand is such a relief that even Crowley lets out a whimper. “If I passss out again, isss it ssstill flattering?”

“Absolutely.”

Crowley props himself up on his elbow. “If I’m not allowed to sssee what you’re doing, why are you ssstill allowed to ssstare at me?”

Aziraphale’s eyes nearly roll back when electric tingling joins the heat in his body. “Because it reminds me of _why_ I’m doing it, my dear.”

“Oh.” Crowley seems to consider that with his usual darting looks as he thinks. Then he tilts his head, shrugs, and leans over Aziraphale. “Ssstill cheating, then,” he announces, and plunders Aziraphale’s mouth with lips and tongue.

Aziraphale almost chokes as his back arches up in response. “Oh—oh, my—dear—_fuck_, Crowley!” he shouts, all of it swallowed up by Crowley’s questing mouth just before he comes so hard he literally sees stars.

_I thought that was just an expression_, Aziraphale thinks in a complete daze. _A trite, very much overused expression!_

When he is no longer shaking as much, he rids himself of the resulting mess and rolls over. “Crowley? Are you all right, dear?”

Crowley is staring up at the ceiling, his pupils blown wide and dark. “Ngghhk.”

Aziraphale reaches out, carefully placing his hand on Crowley’s shoulder. “I would like some reassurance that is in a real spoken language.”

“Nnggh.” Crowley shuts his eyes and then lets out an exceptionally pathetic whimper.

Aziraphale smiles. “Close enough, I suppose.”

He curls up around Crowley, reversing their usual positions, and hums under his breath. That was far more pleasant than he expected; he isn’t really used to being a spectacle. That’s always been more to Crowley’s preference, but it was…well. It was very much worth it.

“Dissipate,” Crowley finally says about an hour later.

“Mm? The shower, you mean?” Aziraphale asks.

“Yeah.” He can see Crowley’s throat bob as he swallows. “Might’ve blundered, angel.”

Aziraphale lifts his head. “Why is that, dear?”

Crowley is still staring at the ceiling. “Angel, there is no exhaust fan in this room, nor is there a bloody shower.”

“Oh. Oh!” Aziraphale blushes from the roots of his hair down to his shoulders. “Oh, I—”

“Shut up, I’ll just…” Crowley makes an incomprehensible noise again. “Fuuuuuuck.”

“Yes, I would very much like to,” Aziraphale teases him.

“That’s not helping!” Crowley rolls over and bites Aziraphale’s arm. “Just. Really. Not. Helping.”

Oh, he is probably a terrible angel for this. “Well, perhaps next time you could assist, then.”

“NRRGH. ANGEL. STOP. HELPING.”

Aziraphale takes pity on him. “Show me your wings, Crowley.”

Crowley sighs and then calls them forth, letting them spread out until Aziraphale is partly sheltered by one dark bronze wing. “S’your solution to everything,” Crowley mutters. Then he exhales as he melts into a puddle when Aziraphale buries his hands in Crowley’s feathers. He starts stroking them, alulas down to covets down to primaries, then up again to repeat the caress.

“It might be,” Aziraphale whispers softly when he feels Crowley drift off to sleep. “But that’s because it works, my dear.”

* * * *

Time is different for ethereal beings—or any long-lived species, Aziraphale supposes. He literally spends the entire night stroking Crowley’s wings, keeping his dearest friend in the most peaceful sleep imaginable, and it’s like no time has passed at all until dawn begins to paint the bedroom walls in swaths of violet. That is followed by gentle pink, and then the golds of dawn push their way in through the upper east-facing windows in Crowley’s bedroom. Aziraphale notes that Crowley forgot to lower the blackout curtains, and then decides it didn’t matter last night. Both of them were a bit distracted, anyway.

Aziraphale eases his way out from beneath Crowley’s wing, and then watches as Crowley’s wings slowly fold inward, but remain visible. He’s sleeping mostly on his stomach, face completely buried in his pillow, so there is nothing to yet nudge him into thinking wings should be done away with.

He stands there and watches his dear one sleep for a few minutes. He is hopeless. Hopelessly in love. He loves everything about Crowley; he loved Crowley when they were on opposite sides, and he would even if that were still true.

Aziraphale changes clothes and goes into the kitchen to make tea. Crowley tends to sleep until well past dawn, usually finding consciousness between nine or ten o’clock unless he’s put in a harsh day. Then he’ll simply sleep until he’s done, anywhere from twenty-four hours to three weeks.

Tea in hand, Aziraphale picks up the book to finish double-checking references about this Doctor person, whoever they currently are. There are a few more photographs, and in one of them is a man with what appears to be straight blond hair and a coat that Aziraphale could almost appreciate. It’s the visible edging he doesn’t like—well, and the trousers. Another is a drawing done in colored pastels; this version of the Doctor has curling, absolutely _wild_ brown hair and a decent sense of fashion. It’s the scarf that Crowley would find highly offensive, though Aziraphale rather likes it. There is too much of it, that scarf, but it seems to suit the man quite well. With him is a drawing of a shorter woman, also with dark brown hair and brown eyes. Aziraphale considers her hairstyle, which is mindful of the 1970s and thus familiar, but it’s the name the artist scribbled underneath the drawing in pencil that truly catches Aziraphale’s attention.

“Sarah Jane Smith. I’ve heard that name before.” Aziraphale gets up and, after considering it, sits down to use Crowley’s laptop. He has his own account to log in to, and the password is easy enough to remember, given it’s such a very important year to them both.

Aziraphale really, really doesn’t like computers. He’d prefer to continue to avoid them but for the bookshop’s quarterly accounting, but when an archangel who’s been dead for six thousand years is constantly showing you up with his easy, ready adaption to modern technology, one does what one must: he gave in and learned how to use Google. It always felt a bit like getting his hands dirty to use the search device until Crowley sighed and turned on something called “Safe Search” that filtered out a great deal of the oft-resulting pornography. Aziraphale isn’t opposed to pornography in the slightest, but when he’s trying to research mundane topics, it’s quite the distraction.

“Yes, yes, there you are. A reporter, mostly focused on conspiracy theories proven true,” Aziraphale mutters under his breath as he scrolls through the search results. She was independent, so her work showed up in numerous newspapers. It’s all quite respectable at first, but by the end of her career, it was only the redtops who took her on the most—because she was reporting on alien activity.

“Bugger,” Aziraphale says as he finds her obituary, feeling a brief and tangible sadness. “Lost to cancer in 2011. I do hope you had a full and wonderful life, Ms. Smith. Oh, survived by an adopted son who was in university at the time. I hope there was family about who could look after you, as well.”

Out of curiosity, he searches for Donna Noble. The only results that pop up are obituaries from the recent loss of her mother and husband, and an archived wedding announcement from spring 2010. No, one more; there is a brief blurb about a newly married couple from Chiswick who won a decent amount from a lottery ticket presented as a wedding gift from an unknown part that same year.

“Unknown party, my entire backside.”

Aziraphale retrieves the crackpot theory book, along with a sheet of paper he’d tucked into the back. Every time he’d come across a name who wasn’t a historical figure Aziraphale is already aware of, he’d written it down. Mister Davis had done his research, but Aziraphale noticed almost at once that the brief list of names doesn’t even come close to the number of actual beings implied to be involved in this particular alien’s life.

Josephine Jones Grant crops up as a retired civilian employee of something called UNIT. That one has a subheading; UNIT is currently disbanded as an organization. Unfortunately, nothing listed tells Aziraphale what said organization happened to be. She has a Facebook page, which Aziraphale reluctantly visits while resolving to wash his hands directly afterwards. Mrs. Jo Grant is still alive as of two days ago, but is off traveling somewhere in Tibet.

Captain Mike Yates was retired British military, with a background in UNIT strongly implied. The young man lived a full life, retired from active duty, and only recently passed in 2010. Aziraphale does a search for UNIT out of sheer annoyance and receives further irritation as a result; there is no actual page for any military division called UNIT. Nothing mentions their purpose, former or current. There is, instead, a bloody _helpline_ telephone number listed that is supposedly re-routing everything UNIT used to handle, the doings of which are not mentioned at all.

He squeezes his eyes shut and dares to try a Reddit link. That is only semi-useful, but at least Aziraphale discovers that the Unified Intelligence Taskforce was formerly a global organization…

“…dedicated to the protection of the Earth against threatening alien lifeforms.” Aziraphale rolls his eyes and gets rid of the Reddit thread. “Well, you lot were just smashing at your jobs, weren’t you?”

The name Martha Jones gives him so many results that Aziraphale wants to despair. He thinks on it and adds UNIT to her name, which _vastly_ narrows things down. She’s a young medical doctor, age thirty-nine, who also worked for UNIT, current employment unknown.

“Oh, not again,” Aziraphale grumbles, and clicks on yet another bloody Facebook link. The bio-photograph is of both the dark-skinned young doctor and someone Aziraphale presumes is her husband, a man listed in her public profile as Mickey Smith, age forty-four. No—Mickey Smith-Jones and Martha Jones-Smith. Crowley would find that amusing, as that is certainly the sort of thing young people would choose to do for the express purpose of annoying someone else. Aziraphale notes that both husband and wife appear to be happy, but the rest of her page is marked as private.

Susan Foreman grants him numerous results, but he knows at once that they’re not the correct person. The same can be said for Ben Jackson, Jamie McCrimmon, and Harry Sullivan.

Jenny Flint and Madam Vastra turn up as a pair, a supposed urban legend from Victorian London. “Hired investigators, one of whom was rumored to have a horribly disfiguring skin condition,” Aziraphale reads, shaking his head. “Subtext, dears, you are missing all of it.” Whether or not Madam Vastra was an alien isn’t as amusing is the fact that these urban legend sites are completely missing the fact that Jenny Flint was not Madam Vastra’s servant, but most certainly her wife.

Ryan Sinclair is another frustrating name, given how many people in Britain share it. Combining that with the reference in the book, which names Mister Sinclair as a favored man of King James I, doesn’t actually help much.

Aziraphale shrugs, adds the word _alien_, and tries again. That gets him one result for Mister Sinclair, though it seems to be a secondary school’s alumni site with chat threads devoted to rumor-mongering. That provides information that Mister Sinclair is a young man in Sheffield, currently twenty years old, no current listed occupation…and a YouTube video that one of his former classmates swears Mister Sinclair is involved in.

It’s the steampunk pepper pot video from New Year’s Day 2019 that Israfil found yesterday afternoon. Somehow, Aziraphale isn’t the least bit surprised. There are two others involved as well aside from the female Doctor: an older man and a young woman who looks to be of East Asian descent. Neither of them are identified, nor are they really in focus. The fool who took the video of the deadly alien pepper pot spent most of their time focused directly on said pepper pot.

The only names he has left on the list are the Trickster—which Aziraphale doesn’t even bother with, Crowley had the idea spread globally by the 1950s—and the Bad Wolf. The latter results in several dozen interesting (and questionable) websites before Aziraphale realizes there is a specific News tab. He tries that, instead.

“Autumn 2005, reported instances of vandalism across the entirety of London, suspected gang activity…” Aziraphale frowns. “Buildings and public property of all sorts were tagged with nothing more than the term _Bad Wolf_. No damage, no actual rise in criminal activity reported. Interesting—oh, my. The same thing happened again in autumn 2009.” Aziraphale sits back from the laptop, intrigued. That was the other timeline’s massive bit of panic with twenty-seven planets in the sky, and Donna’s last interaction with the Doctor. Nothing of that is mentioned, of course, but for the Bad Wolf reports to have survived the timeline reset of 1996, then those weren’t gang tags. Those were strong enough to be marks in time.

Crowley is going to love that. Or have a complete fit.

Aziraphale smiles when he hears footsteps behind him, a moment of perfect timing. “Good morning.”

“Nrgh, no it isn’t. It’s bloody _early_,” Crowley complains, but he stumbles over and slings his arms around Aziraphale. “What are you even doing?”

“Oh, Mister Davis’s book had a few names in it. I hate Facebook.”

“You hate most of the internet, angel.” Crowley reads the results on the screen. “So that’s the big Bad Wolf. Well, I suppose if feudal Japan had a problem with someone spraying their nickname all about with permanent paint, I’d probably not like them very much, either.”

“Well, yes, but the intriguing part is that this information remained a part of this timeline, just like Canary Wharf,” Aziraphale points out. “Almost everyone else the book named is either deceased or is retired from something called UNIT. United Intelligence Taskforce. They were supposed to be defending the Earth from alien threats, at least according to a Reddit thread, but they’ve been disbanded as of late 2018.”

“Probably for being rubbish at their jobs,” is Crowley’s opinion. “Your tea is stone cold.” He taps the rim of the cup for Aziraphale, heating it back up, before wandering off to the kitchen. “Ugh, no patience for this. Want to go out for breakfast?”

Aziraphale closes the laptop and smiles. “It’s just after eight. Are you certain you want to inflict yourself upon the poor unwashed masses at this hour?”

“If it gets me coffee or tea or more coffee, I’ll inflict all I want.”

“Let me just get my coat, then.” Aziraphale pauses after standing up. “You might want your shoes, dear.”

Crowley glances down at his feet and scowls. Then he snaps his fingers so he doesn’t have to retrieve them.

Aziraphale shakes his head, feeling warm fondness even for Crowley’s blatant laziness. “You could actually bother with putting them on and lacing them, you know.”

“Caffeine,” Crowley growls in response. “That place two blocks down and over has crepes, angel. The real thing.”

“Oh!” Aziraphale smiles, appeased. “Well, you _definitely_ should have mentioned that right away.”


	5. Space and Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blocked signals. Tenebris. Darkness. This bloody Doctor bloke. Even Donna’s meeting with Israfil. All of it has to be tied together; he’s just too bloody stupid to see how.

Saturday, 23rd May 2020

Crowley is annoyed when Aziraphale says the crepes aren’t up to Paris’s excellent standards, and then vaguely mollified when his angel says they do manage to come remarkably close. That works well enough, and Crowley gets to drink coffee until he feels less like he needs to sleep for a week. Maybe a short nap in the garden later, but now he can push back that urge to lounge for a week.

Last night had been…intense. He’s still not certain how he avoided blacking out, or just straight-up discorporating from such a shock to the system. Also, he has to stop thinking about this immediately, or Aziraphale is going to end up with a serpent in his lap and possibly facing charges of public indecency.

Wait, that could be fun—no. No.

“Are you all right, dear?” Aziraphale asks after Crowley sends the waiter off with a credit card to cover the bill. “You look rather flushed.”

Crowley prods at his cheek, which feels far warmer than normal, and scowls. “You,” he accuses, “are a _terrible_ influence.” Aziraphale beams in response, which doesn’t help. At all.

The walk back to Crowley’s building isn’t bad, and somehow, they end up holding hands. It doesn’t happen very often, mostly because of six thousand years of habitual caution. Crowley isn’t certain he’s fond of his fingers being trapped, but it makes Aziraphale happy when they touch in public—at least in ways that won’t get them chased off by irritable coppers. It also helps Crowley to remember, once again, that he doesn’t have to give a damn anymore what the _opposition_ might think. He doesn’t have to care what anyone thinks about the fact that he is stupidly in love with an angel.

Carol isn’t in on Saturdays. Instead, Jillian is sitting at the reception desk, wearing as close to business formal as the woman knows how to get without abandoning her blue hair and nasal piercings. She does manage to pull it off rather well, _and_ she is completely professional (mostly) about her part-time position. Jillian winks at him after handing over a stack of bills that arrived with the post, and Crowley rolls his eyes in response.

Crowley snaps his fingers to send the few useful bits of mail upstairs to his desk once they’re out of Jillian’s sight. The rest of it is just useless statements telling Crowley that his accounts are still holding positive balances after he deliberately overpaid them just to not have to deal with that rubbish.

Aziraphale spent the walk filling Crowley in on what he’d uncovered using Google, which really isn’t much. “So, you spent the morning discovering that Mister Davis knew the names of a few dead people, a lot of useless people, and not much else.” Crowley gives Aziraphale a smug look after they’re done climbing three storey’s worth of stairs. The angel doesn’t look the slightest bit out of breath. “I told you that you’d get used to it.”

“Do shut up,” Aziraphale requests politely, waiting for Crowley to open his door. “Library?”

“No nefarious plans at the moment. Sure,” Crowley agrees.

Aziraphale checks his coat for a notebook and a good fountain pen before they leave the living room. “Sorry. Someone Upstairs has developed an odd taste for making off with all the ink-stained quills they can find in the Library.”

“Why?” Crowley asks, leading the way down the hall. “Your room, you do the honors.”

“I’ve no idea, but if it’s to start a new fashion trend in regards to wings, I know exactly who to blame,” Aziraphale replies, walking into the only room in Crowley’s flat that doesn’t fit the theme. It’s purely Aziraphale, from the glassed-in shelves that are beginning to collect a mixed jumble of books to the illuminated 12th century manuscript lying open on his desk. Crowley is still pleased by the rug that replaced its blood-soaked predecessor. It’s a much closer match to the room’s décor than the original, replicating the dark blue Victorian wallpaper and its pale patterns of gold.

When Aziraphale opens the doorway, a portal that was the work of conniving, miracles, and further conniving, he stops short in surprise. “Oh, dear. That’s probably not good.”

“Why? What’s—” Crowley halts in place right next to Aziraphale, staring.

It’s no longer a portal to the Library. It is a white, empty, very small closet.

“Did you do anything?” Crowley asks, glancing at Aziraphale.

Aziraphale shakes his head. “I haven’t been near it since my last visit to the Library, and that was over a week ago.”

“Israfil used that door this past Tuesday when some idiot flew directly into a wall in the City and needed an actual Healer.” Crowley scowls, closes the door, and opens it again. It remains, resolutely, a barren closet.

“Bouncing signals. Oh, _bollocks_.” Crowley digs through his jacket pockets until he remembers where his mobile is, yanking it free before activating the keypad and dialing. He listens as the signal connects…followed by endless ringing. The signal is bouncing from relay to relay, not going anywhere. “Fuck!”

Aziraphale understands at once and bolts from the room. “Who did you call?” he yells over his shoulder.

“Bloody Michael!”

When Crowley follows, Aziraphale is already on the landline, the number dialed, listening to the phone ring. “No answer from Uriel, either,” he finally says. “No voicemail. Nothing.”

“Right.” Crowley dials a different number and holds the mobile up to his ear.

“Whaff,” Israfil mutters when he answers. He sounds like he didn’t even bother to lift his head from the pillow.

“Wake the fuck up and call Ba‘al, right now,” Crowley orders. “Then come up here and tell me what the fuck happens!” He hangs up on his brother and stalks back and forth across his flat.

Blocked signals. Tenebris. Darkness. This bloody Doctor bloke. Even Donna’s meeting with Israfil. All of it has to be tied together; he’s just too bloody stupid to see how.

Aziraphale is worrying at the cuff of his jacket. “Is it like Purgatory, do you think?”

Crowley gives that a brief moment’s thought before dismissing it. “No. You don’t think so, either.”

“No, but sometimes hearing another’s certainty is reassuring.”

He nods, continuing his frenetic pacing that Aziraphale would probably prefer he _not_ be doing. “Yeah, I’m not so great at reassuring right now, angel. I think this might be something worse. Well, if not worse, then _definitely_ more annoying.”

Aziraphale grimaces in displeasure. “I would prefer it to be the latter.”

“Yeah.” Crowley halts and glances upwards. He normally doesn’t like to travel that way at all, preferring flight, the Library portal, or even the stupid escalator. He tosses his mobile onto the sofa, just in case. “Wait here. Going to double-check something.” He closes his eyes and tries to simply will his transition from the physical to the ethereal plane.

He runs into a metaphysical brick wall. It’s a familiar feeling, sharp and stinging. Then he’s abruptly flung back so hard that he slams down onto his own floor.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale places his hand behind Crowley’s neck, but doesn’t try to move him. “Dear, are you all right?”

Crowley manages to nod. His nerves feel frayed and snapped, his whole being an off-key note of discord that’s left him on the verge of shivering. He manages to brush off the worst of it, but bloody hell, that sucked arse. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.”

“Lies.” Aziraphale rests his hand on his chest. The brush of ethereal soothes everything that Crowley missed. “Better?”

“Yeah, I lied, and yes, it does.” Crowley opens his eyes and lets Aziraphale help him to sit up. “Well, that didn’t work.”

“That part was obvious.” Aziraphale tugs him up further until they’re both sitting on the sofa. Crowley picks up his mobile out of habit, but just runs his thumb along the glass without activating the screen. “I didn’t feel anything broken, but you were most assuredly not fine,” Aziraphale says.

“Mostly bruised, angel. Be fine in a bit.” Crowley blinks a few times, thinking on how familiar that energy felt. That’s a fucking unpleasant realization all by itself. “I wouldn’t try to do that again. Even if we broke through what’s in the way, I don’t think it would be all that easy to get back.”

“Are you certain?” Aziraphale asks, and Crowley can tell his angel is being careful not to sound insulting. “You are a bit…out of practice. With that sort of transition, I mean.”

“Not with this.” Crowley reaches out and takes Aziraphale’s hand. “That was demonic, angel. Occult energy. Always feels like hundreds of angry wasps are about to hunt you down and make you regret all of your life choices.”

“You ran straight into a wall of occult—” Aziraphale swallows. “Was it hellfire?”

Crowley shakes his head. “No, just really bloody annoying. Besides, I’d actually _be_ on fire if it’d been that.”

“Please do not set yourself on fire,” Aziraphale whispers, clutching Crowley’s hand in a tighter grip. “Not like—not like that.”

Crowley smiles. “No, I think that last time during your very botched execution was enough for me.”

“It’s definitely an occult difficulty,” Israfil confirms a few moments later, bursting into the flat with his mobile still in his hand. Aziraphale and Crowley both stand up to meet him. “I nearly melted my mobile trying to push the signal through, but I made it. Ba‘al, tell them what you just told me.”

“The physical plane of the Earth is inaccessible to all those who reside in Hell,” Ba‘al states through the speaker. Their tone is exact and precise, which means they’re nervous. “We are still receiving damned souls, but the top of the escalator leading up to the ground level is blocked by an impenetrable wall. None of us can burrow up from Hell to gain entry to the physical world by the soil of the Earth. Our Prince finds this most upsetting. This is his domain, and should be under his control, but so far, this block, this seal, cannot be broken. This would require a great deal of occult strength, created by an entity outside of Hell’s control.”

“It’s the same way for Upstairs as well, I’m afraid,” Aziraphale says when Israfil holds out the phone so they can all be heard. “No telephone numbers connect, though we haven’t tried to boost a mobile’s capability yet. The portal to the Library is gone. Oh, and Crowley tried to simply _go_ there, and was all but swatted back down to the floor by what he says is definitely occult energy.”

“That…is not good. It is also not our doing,” Ba‘al murmurs. “To lock away the Earth is not to our liking. It does not allow the others to perform their chosen roles.”

“I believe you.” It’s still a weird thing to say, but Crowley does trust Ba‘al, and not just because Ba‘al resumed their former name willingly, or because they make Israfil happy. “But that doesn’t mean someone else hasn’t been getting ideas. I saw Tenebris, Ba‘al. She was here on Earth yesterday, and I’m pretty sure that block was already in place when it happened.”

Ba‘al hisses. “Was she bearing a corporation, Crowley? Or was she only herself?”

“Herself,” Crowley answers, and then feels himself turn pale. “Right. I forgot. That’s worse.”

“Worse?” Aziraphale asks, wide-eyed. “How could it be worse if she’s incorporeal?”

“Being housed in a corporation gives the Woman who Lurks in the Dark limits, Principality Aziraphale,” Ba‘al replies. “For her, to be incorporeal is to be at her most powerful. She is a deadly foe. Did she speak?”

Crowley snorts. “She said the Darkness is coming. Whatever the hell that means.”

Ba‘al sounds similarly unimpressed. “That does not narrow it down, no. Has anything else happened?”

“Time doesn’t feel right.” Crowley lifts his head. “In all honesty, it’s starting to feel like more of a press. It’s weird. I’ve never felt anything like it.”

“I will tell the Morningstar.” Ba‘al hesitates for a long moment. “Be cautious. This is not normal.” Then they hang up.

Crowley rolls his eyes. “No. Kidding.”

“That was a truly unnecessary level of sarcasm,” Aziraphale chastises him gently. “Well. Perhaps not entirely unwarranted, though.”

Israfil tucks his mobile away in his jacket pocket. “I’d try to reach Upstairs on my mobile, but I was pushing things as it was. I don’t want to kill the poor thing.”

Crowley hands over his mobile. “You already know how much energy it took. Give one of our siblings a ring and put it on speaker.”

Israfil nods and dials Michael’s number. “Always go for the sensible sibling first,” he says, and holds it out with the speaker function engaged. His hand begins to glow, his brow furrowing, as he concentrates on fighting against the energy blocking the mobile’s signal. “GOT IT!” he yells just as Michael answers: “WHERE THE BLOODY HELL ARE YOU, AND WHAT DID YOU DO?”

“Oh, sure, blame us,” Crowley retorts. “We’re on Earth, we’re stuck, this planet has been completely closed off to Above and Below by unknown occult energy, and oh yeah, interstellar signals can’t make it off this planet, either.”

Crowley hears Michael take a deep breath. “My apologies. I’m afraid it’s become habit to assume that if there is trouble on the Earth, you’re involved.”

“Well, I think it’s definitely accurate to say that we’re involved,” Aziraphale points out. “We just didn’t cause it. The Library portal is closed, as well.”

“I know. Gabriel tried to access it yesterday when we felt this block form and cut us off from the physical plane. We can go elsewhere in the universe, but not Earth.”

“So, someone with occult strength that literally rivals that of Lucy and the host of Hell has basically imprisoned the Earth for…reasons.” Israfil shakes his head. “Well, that’s wonderful news.”

“How did you know about Hell?” Michael asks.

“Same way we reached you. Sort of overcharged a mobile, but I wouldn’t do it to the same device twice.” Israfil gives Crowley a brief, apologetic glance. “It’s starting to overheat, sorry.”

“It’ll recover as long as it doesn’t melt before this conversation is over,” Crowley says, unconcerned. It’s not the first mobile he’s destroyed this year, anyway. “Above can still phone Below?”

“Yes. That line of communication is unblocked.”

“Right.” Aziraphale worries at his lower lip for a moment. “Well…then what does God have to say about this?”

“Oh, Father was being cryptic. Or He was telling us the only thing He could. Sometimes it is difficult to determine which.” Michael replies. “Father said: _This puzzle box must be solved from within, not from without. The pieces will come together within the trap. Each one fits into the other, no matter the divide of time and space. Among them lie two secrets, each a part of the other. When these secrets are laid bare, the trap will collapse_.”

“Actually, for Mum, that was fairly specific,” Crowley says after a moment. “Not that it currently means anything, but…specific.”

“I wasn’t certain, myself, but if you feel somewhat reassured, I am glad to have passed the message along,” Michael says in obvious relief. “Please take care of yourselves. We only recently regained two of you, and I do not wish to lose my brothers again. Or the fiery Principality,” he adds politely.

“Gotta go, the mobile’s starting to smoke. Keep the candles burning, all right?” Israfil says, and then hangs up the call before Michael can respond.

Crowley winces as he takes the mobile back. It’s very close to overheating—no, automatic shutdown to protect the circuitry just kicked in. Then his landline rings. “Ignore it, it’s probably more robo-callers,” he says, walking into the kitchen to place the mobile on a heat-resistant potholder.

“Hello?”

Crowley freezes in place. “Oh, shit.”

“Look, I hope one of you is listening, because something’s wrong,” Donna’s voice continues. “There is—there’s something out there, and it’s watching my house.”

Crowley lets out a frustrated growl and then leaps over the kitchen counter to reach the landline phone before anyone else, snatching it off the cradle before Donna is foolish enough to hang up. “What’s watching your house?”

“I don’t know. They look like bloody _angel_ statues,” Donna replies. She’s frightened; he can feel it like it’s being broadcast down the phone line. “They don’t move the entire time you stare at them, but if I look away and then back again, they’re in new places. They haven’t come any closer, but—”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.” Crowley realizes he’s leaning over the desk and reminds his corporation that he doesn’t need to panic because he doesn’t even need to _breathe_ all that often. “Listen. Don’t hang up your phone. Put it down on a flat surface, but don’t hang up. I’ll be right there, all right?”

“Tracking the signal?” Donna asks, some of her fear lost to curiosity.

“Yeah, let’s go with that. Also, don’t hit me with anything when I turn up.” Crowley puts the handset down on the desk next to his phone and turns around. “Don’t hang that up until I nudge you,” he says to Israfil, who nods.

“Crowley?” Aziraphale isn’t panicked, but has a sense of expectation, of waiting for the worst, etched all over his face.

“Yeah, so, things probably just got worse,” Crowley admits. “I’ll be right back.” Then he closes his eyes and leaps into the phone line without much thought as to the how. The how doesn’t really matter.

It’s always a fun ride, anyway.

He emerges into the familiar clutter of Donna’s living room and shakes himself. “Whoo! That’s always a rush!”

Donna gapes at him. “How in the entire bloody blasted _fuck_ did you do that?”

Crowley tries for a useful explanation and fails. “Size matters not?”

“Okay. Yeah, sure.” Donna has to be one of the most sensible human beings he’s ever known, because she lets it go at that. “I’m more worried about the bleedin’ angel statues.”

“Trust me, so am I.” Crowley hangs up Donna’s landline, sends a brief nudge to Israfil to do the same on the other end, and then walks to the window.

There are three grey statues out on the lawn, just outside the protective circle he placed yesterday afternoon. “Oh, I know what you are,” he breathes, and then deliberately closes his eyes.

When he opens them again, the statues are in different positions. They’ve also gained anger and a _lot_ of teeth.

“What are they?” Donna asks, pressing against Crowley’s shoulder. He twitches a little, but can’t quite manage to tell her to back off.

“They’re constructs. They were at first, anyway,” Crowley explains, refusing to blink as he stares at them. It always drove them mental when he wouldn’t blink. “After a time, I think they learned how to breed. Their original creator wasn’t capable of making more, but more of them turned up anyway.”

“Constructs. Then they’re not alive?”

“Well, if they’re breeding, they’re probably alive _now_,” Crowley responds, trying not to roll his eyes. “You’re not safe here anymore. Neither of you are.”

Donna sucks in a deep, unhappy breath. “They can get through the protections you lot made?”

“Not yet, but they’re eternal unless you manage to take one apart. They’ll figure it out, and it won’t take them nearly as long as I’d like. Besides, you’re sort of stuck in the house with them hanging about outside. Hard to get pizza delivery if the pizza delivery person gets snagged by a construct and sent back in time by a century.”

“Sent back in time?” Donna gives him an incredulous look. “That’s all they do?”

Crowley glares at her. “I’m not a fucking time traveler, Donna. If you get sent back a century in time, I can’t exactly save you! You’d have to wait it out, survive the years, until you were here again. Anyone would—if they lived long enough, but that was always the goal.” He sighs. “During the war, they used to throw people back to the point before Time existed anywhere. That isn’t a fun way to die.”

Donna takes another breath and then turns resolute. “What do we do, then? I can’t move Granddad, not easily. He’s a bit more with it today, less napping, but your brother was right—he’s still recovering.”

“I can take care of that, if you let me. If you let _us_,” he corrects, and glances at her. “Don’t trust me because my face is familiar. Trust me because I don’t want either of you to die.”

Donna smiles. “It ain’t your face, sunshine. Yeah, I trust you. Besides, I’d do just about anything to keep Granddad safe.”

Crowley picks up her landline and dials his own number. “Come on, pick up,” he demands after listening to his own ansaphone message.

“Sorry, we just wanted to be certain,” Aziraphale answers. “How bad is it?”

“Bad enough,” Crowley says. “How are you on sharing the flat above the bookshop for a while?”

“Well, I don’t sleep unless I’m with you, so I don’t necessarily use it all that much. Why?”

“Because these people need sanctuary.”

Aziraphale gasps. “Oh. Oh, my. I haven’t done that in a long time. Are you sure?”

“Your bookshop’s older. Your protections on that building are over four centuries old. Mine are good, but they’re not _settled_.” Crowley sighs and then sticks his tongue out at the stupid construct angels for good measure. “Yeah. I’m certain.”

“Very well, then. Please inform Ms. Noble as to the requirements, my dear.”

Crowley lowers the phone and looks at Donna. “You need to ask Aziraphale for sanctuary from your enemies. Be specific.”

Donna looks worried. “Why do the specifics matter?”

“Because words are important, and if you miss something, it doesn’t work as well.”

“All right.” Donna gestures for the handset, and Crowley hands it over. “Aziraphale?”

“Hello, my dear,” Crowley hears Aziraphale say through the line. “I hear you’ve run into some trouble.”

“Looks like it, yeah.” Donna closes her eyes for a moment and then speaks. “Aziraphale, I’m requesting sanctuary for myself and my grandfather from all of the enemies who would threaten our lives.”

Crowley grins. “Oh, well done,” he murmurs. She can’t see the brief flash of ethereal light that marks her, but he can.

“Oh! Oh, I felt that. That was weird. Good weird, though. Did it work?” Donna asks.

“It did indeed. I’m glad I still had it in me; I’m a bit out of practice. I hope you and your grandfather are fond of books.”

“Love me a good book.” Donna sniffs back relieved tears. “I guess I’ll see you in a bit, then. Thank you, Aziraphale.”

“It is absolutely my pleasure,” Aziraphale replies. Donna hands back the phone, which Crowley promptly hangs up.

“Now what?”

“Pack what you need, but also pack what you _want_. They’re not going to stop trying to get in here, so don’t leave behind anything that has value. I don’t mean money, I mean emotions,” Crowley clarifies. “Keep in mind that we can just miracle your clothes clean, so packing a wardrobe isn’t exactly a thing.”

“Okay. I can do that.” Donna rubs her hands together, chin up, shoulders set. “What about Granddad’s room? He still needs most of that medical stuff, even if I’ll be glad when he can put it away for a bit.”

Crowley glances at the window again. The angels have moved; two of them he can see, but the third must have circled around to the front. Stupid bloody constructs. “I’ll take care of that. You can leave everything in his room where it is. Oh, yeah, have you ever teleported before?”

Donna gives him a smug look. “Have I ever teleported before? Crowley, I could tell you _so many stories_, and most of them involve running away after the teleport bit is done.”

“Yeah, no, you don’t need to worry about the running part.”

* * * *

Crowley glances down at the blue box that Wilf is holding in his lap. Aside from that, there are only two small sports bags and Donna’s purse. “How much can that bloody thing even _hold_?”

“Don’t know,” Wilf replies, looking a bit smug. “I’ve never tried to cram things in until it ran out of room, but it’s holding onto everything we need well enough. Best part is that the weight of it never changes.”

“Mass is more important, anyway,” Crowley mutters, taking another look out the window in Wilf’s room. “Five of you? What the fuck is wrong with you bastards?” He pauses. “No, wait, where did you even _come_ from? You’re not even supposed to exist on this planet!”

“I think they’re called Weeping Angels, and I really had to scour my brain to pull that up,” Donna says. “The Doctor encountered them once when he was traveling with Martha, got knocked back in time to the 1960s. He had to help someone in 2008 coordinate things so they could get un-stuck.” Her eyes unfocus for a moment. “Martha absolutely hated it. Don’t really blame her.”

“Weeping Angels.” Crowley sneers at them. “Can’t say it’s an inaccurate name, given what they do to people.” He turns around and ignores the stupid constructs. “Right. The two of you ready?”

“Oh, probably,” Wilf says. “Not so sure what we’re ready for, but I’m always game to give new things a try.”

Crowley hesitates, feeling himself smile. “I see where she gets it from, then.” It’s still unfamiliar, that sensation of _wanting_ people to be happy, of _wanting_ to help. God, he remembers when that was the only thing he knew. The difference between then and now still feels like physical pain.

Wilf looks at Donna with a proud smile. “Well, bit of her grandmother, too, but…yeah. I reckon so.”

Donna reaches out and takes her grandfather’s hand. “Love you, too. Let’s get this show on the road, sunshine.”

“Right. You’re lucky I know Aziraphale’s flat as well as I do.” Crowley draws in a breath and lets it out merely for the calming effect it has on a corporation before spreading his arms. “Oh, and I don’t normally do this, so it might be a bit rough.” Then he closes his eyes, encircles the entirety of the room with his will, and demands that it be somewhere else.

Reality slides sideways. He ignores it; reality is just a veneer, another construct. Wilf gasps at whatever they can see. Donna is laughing in utter delight.

The delight helps. It’s like fuel, the way spite and anger used to fuel the worst things he’s done.

Reality slips back into place. Crowley doesn’t let go until he can feel everything click, slotting in to fit where originally there was nothing to fit at all.

Crowley lowers his arms and then flops directly over the foot of Wilf’s bed, facedown and trying not to let on that this corporation has decided that dizziness is bloody grand. “All done. I’m not gonna be moving for a few minutes, thanks.”

Donna sounds perplexed. “But we’re still in the room.”

Crowley waves his hands vaguely in the direction of the door. “Yes. No.”

“Oh, you’re out of it.” Donna opens the door and then gasps. “Is this Aziraphale’s flat?”

Crowley resolutely shoves his face into the blanket. “Yep.”

“You moved my granddad’s _entire room_ and just…shoved it into Aziraphale’s flat?” Donna asks in disbelief.

“No, I made a spot for it to exist like it always existed there, so it doesn’t fuck up the building,” Crowley says into the blanket.

“Oh.” Donna pauses. “Is there a hole in my bloody house?”

“No! There’s…a spot in your house where this room used to be, and a closed door—look which do you prefer? The moved room or the stupid angel constructs?”

“I’ll take the moved room,” Wilf says, which is completely sensible. “You look like you’re done in though, lad.”

“M’not a lad,” Crowley mutters. He hears the distant ring of the bell for the shop’s front door, and then Donna happily greets Aziraphale and Israfil.

Crowley blinks and then Aziraphale is fretting at him. “You—you moved their entire room? You put their _room_ inside my flat? Crowley!”

“The other stuff wouldn’t’ve fit,” Crowley retorts without lifting his head. “And they needed it, and I’ll put it back when things calm down, and why am I explaining this?”

“Well…I…” Aziraphale’s hand brushes its way through Crowley’s hair. “I didn’t know you could alter reality. I thought that was…a limited ability.”

“Didn’t change reality. Just moved a room,” Crowley protests, and drops right off into sleep.

He jerks awake later, aware that something has just changed but with no idea of what. His head is lifted, his hands already curling over the edge of the bed, when Wilf quietly says, “You felt that, too?”

Crowley glances at the old man, who must have moved from his bed after he was literally moved several miles to safety. Wilf’s eyes are brighter, his movements a bit stronger, and he’s wearing different clothing. Crowley wonders if Donna told her grandfather what she gave him, and then decides that’s their business, not his.

“Yeah. I felt that.” Crowley pulls back his sleeve to look at his watch. Then he shakes his head and twists the dial so the time switches to Hell. Too Late, yeah, that’s typical. He added in Heaven’s clock, though, and that says it’s Saturday, 23rd May, 12:01 p.m.

He switches the dial back to local Earth time. His watch is stubbornly insisting that it’s Friday, 22nd May, 12:01 p.m.

“Okay, first thing. Did I sleep draped over your bed like a bloody sack for the last two hours?”

Wilf chuckles a bit. “Yeah, you did. I didn’t mind. Kept my feet warm.”

Crowley nods. “Right. So…what’s today?”

“Oh. Well, according to my clock here…” Wilf’s voice trails off. “All right, I know I’m off my rocker a bit, being over ninety like I am, but I know today is Saturday. Isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Crowley slowly sits up. That odd press of time he’d felt is still there, but much less intense that it had been a few hours ago. “Today is Saturday. Well. It _was_ Saturday.”

“Crowley!” That’s Aziraphale’s shout. “Are you mucking about with my clocks again?”

“Why is everything always my fault?” Crowley asks, and then realizes that’s a truly stupid question. Things were quite often his fault for over six thousand years. “Zira, it’s fucking yesterday again!”

Aziraphale comes upstairs, followed by Donna. “That’s what I was trying to tell him!” she declares as she bursts into the room, brandishing her mobile. “I was sitting downstairs talking to one of my old mates, and the call drops. Before I can dial her back, I notice this bloody thing is claiming it’s Friday again!”

“Because it _is_ Friday again.” Crowley contemplates lying back down and pulling the blanket over his head for good measure. “Couldn’t you feel that change?”

Aziraphale presses his lips together, eyes closed, as he concentrates. “I felt something, but I’ve never had your sense of time, my dear.”

“That was a reset. Like 2008, like 1996. Except…no finesse.” Crowley gives up and sits up on the bed, trying to listen to time and probably looking like a rumpled, half-aware moron in the process. “Someone let twenty-four hours roll over and then dropped us straight back to Friday at noon.”

“But we didn’t go anywhere,” Wilf protests. “If time reset, wouldn’t we be, y’know, back where we started yesterday?”

“No. We’re extra-dimensional, and you two have that weird time vortex artron energy stuff.” Crowley rubs his eyes and then feels Israfil give him an impatient nudge.

_Yes, I know, it’s fucking Friday again._

_I noticed_, Israfil replies at his driest. _Why?_

_Hell if I know. Anything wrong at home?_

_Not a thing. No Tenebris, no bloody angel constructs. Nothing’s gone wrong except that all the clocks just decided it’s yesterday again. If that’s the Darkness that’s coming, they used the wrong term._

_Doubt it’s that_. Crowley refocuses on the others. “Who wants to take bets that we can grab a random passerby from outside and they’ll be absolutely certain that of course it’s Friday, and why wouldn’t it be?”

“I’m not takin’ that bet,” Donna retorts at once. “Though…”

“You asked for sanctuary. That means you stay here,” Aziraphale says firmly. “I’ll go ask. Soho is used to my being odd, anyway.”

“How is it you were aware that time changed like that if your friend there wasn’t?” Wilf asks. “I mean, aside from that extra-dimensional bit.”

“Boyfriend,” Crowley corrects absently. “Though it still feels sort of weird to say that, considering we’re both over six thousand years old. Eh. Dating works. Whatever.”

“Oh.” Wilf nods. “Sorry ’bout the mix-up, then.”

“I’ve always been aware of it. It’s not…I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t, even when Time wasn’t really a thing yet.” Crowley crosses his legs, still a bit worn from relocating an entire part of someone’s house. Sitting in this room with an old man with an open mind and a kind heart is soothing—which is still bloody weird.

“Can you travel in it?” Wilf asks, and holds up his hands with a smile when Crowley scowls. “I’ll take that as a no, then.”

“I’m not traveling in it any differently than you are right now. It’s nudging us both forward at the same pace.” Crowley hesitates. “Granted, I can freeze time. Not for very long, not before I start to feel that it’s too much resistance against the turn of the universe. I can slow my awareness of how time passes, and I can speed it up. That’s all, though.”

Wilf gives him a thoughtful look that is very mindful of his granddaughter. “To understand time like that, you’d have to understand space, too, wouldn’t you? I mean, the way I heard it explained, those two have to go together, like they’re linked. Space needs time to grow and expand, and time needs space in order to exist. Right?”

“I—” Crowley rubs at his forehead. “Maybe?”

_Why are you showing this to me, Mother?_

_You do realize you don’t have to call me that, dear one._

_Yes, but you think it’s funny, so I do. Why, Mother?_

The being made of fire and life waved their hand to indicate the vastness of the universe, glittering with shining stars, unfolding nebulae, and the presence of newly birthed black holes, revealed only by the way they pulled at the light. _I wanted to show you this. What do you think?_

_I think it’s beautiful_, Zaherael answered in complete honesty.

_And nothing else?_

Zaherael frowned. _What else would there be?_

_If I were to bring any of your brothers, sisters, or those who choose to be neither or both or everything, out here to view this with me, they would also find it beautiful_, his Creator said. _But beneath that, far below, in a secret place even they couldn’t feel, they would be afraid._

That made absolutely no sense to Zaherael. _Why?_

_Because it is beyond vast. It is their ability to recognize the infinite, and the truth of the infinite is that it has no end. If I am meant to be the Beginning and the End, dear one, then how can infinity exist?_

Zaherael shrugged. _Because you wanted it to._

_Oh, dear one. Even I do not foresee everything. That does not mean that infinity is a mistake. It’s a…_ His Creator paused, and then smiled. _It’s a secret._

_I like secrets._

_I know._

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s…close enough, probably.” Crowley unfolds himself and stands up. How long has it been since he looked at creation that way? Not through the lens of a dream or the haze of memory, but opened that singular part of himself and _looked_?

“Hey, so, if I explode, don’t be all that worried about it. It just takes paperwork to get another body,” Crowley says to Wilf, and then closes his eyes.

He knows where that place is, because he carries it with him. He held onto that single glowing ember the same way he sheltered Raphael, the way he shattered the fragile spark of his soul. That ember was not for anyone in Hell to touch; it wasn’t even for him to acknowledge. He always let it sit in its quiet place and burn. Since it was content, and never bothered him, Crowley ignored it. It was just another leftover from Before, and even though Crowley was Fallen, was irredeemable, he was not really in any great hurry to finish destroying who he’d once been.

Crowley wraps his hand around that glowing ember, the same color as his and Israfil’s hair. It warms his skin, fits perfectly into the hollow curve of his palm.

Then he opens his eyes and infinity shoves its way down his throat.

For a moment, he can see it, all of it. He’d forgotten how beautiful the stars are when he can stand so close.

Then Donna Noble slaps him across the face.

Crowley blinks the starlight out of his eyes and glares at her. “WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT FOR? AGAIN?”

Donna glares at him. “Don’t blame me, sunshine! Aziraphale was starting to lose it over your ruddy eyes and hands glowing, so I fixed it!”

“You didn’t fix _anything!_” Crowley rubs at his jaw again. “Twice in a week, woman! Bloody hell! Zira!”

“I was concerned that you were getting lost.” Aziraphale’s voice is even and prim, but his eyes are far too wide. He’s clasping his hands together so tightly they’re trembling. “I’m sorry, my dear. You startled me.”

“Oh.” Crowley glares at Donna again. “Next time, I’m slapping you.”

Donna snorts. “Yeah, just try it, sunshine.”

Wilf chuckles. “It was a nice light show, ’least before my Donna took offence.”

“Light show. Yeah.” Crowley thinks about that starlight, and how far away it is, and feels his heart plummet for reasons he doesn’t understand—and doesn’t particularly want to, either. Also, his head is starting to hurt. “At least someone appreciated it.”

Israfil shoves his way into the room, his expression resembling a thundercloud. “Drink this, you complete sodding idiot.”

Crowley sips at the tea and then sniffs it. “You put lemon in this. You utter bastard.”

“You need it.” Israfil crosses his arms and glares. “Now, Brother.”

“Oh, fine.” Crowley makes a face at the sour taste beneath the tannic acid. “That’s cruel. What is your problem, anyway?”

“Do you have _any_ idea what sort of a bloody cosmic jolt that was?” Israfil asks in complete disbelief. “What were you even _thinking?_”

“Look, we’ve already established that I’m stupid,” Crowley retorts. He drinks the tea because, much as he loathes the flavor, it’s helping with how his head feels. “It couldn’t have been that bad. I was just bloody looking!”

“No, we’re back to ‘You’re stupid.’” Israfil moves aside a stack of books from a chair and collapses into it. “We’re probably dealing with Samael, and then you go and send up the cosmic equivalent of fucking fireworks!”

Crowley drops the teacup and doesn’t even notice when hot liquid soaks his trousers. “What?”

Israfil’s anger vanishes. “Oh—oh, shit. You didn’t remember who made the angel constructs. You remembered it was one of the Fallen, but not who.”

“No, I remembered, it just bloody well _can’t_ be him!” Crowley snaps.

“Why not? I asked Ba‘al months ago. No one has seen Samael since the beginning, before Gehenna became what it is now!”

“Because the idiot who lets Samael out of the place I put him in doesn’t do so for another three thousand years!” Crowley shouts back.

Aziraphale looks shocked. “You did what? To _him_? Crowley, what are talking about?”

“No, forget that part. _When?_” Israfil asks. He waves his hand, drying Crowley’s trousers just as Crowley notices that they are unpleasantly damp.

“Oh.” Crowley feels the odd urge to hunch his shoulders and hide. “Right after I Fell.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale whispers.

Crowley flinches away from the pity. “No, just—fuck. Fine. Right after I Fell, I still remembered. I still remembered everything, all that he’d done. Soooo, I hunted him down. I found Samael while his wings were still on fire. While he was still weak.”

He has to take a moment and swallow when his throat goes bone-dry. “I dragged him out of the abyss, and took him halfway across the fucking universe. I put him in a hole in the ground so deep that no one should ever have found him, deep inside a planet with a rotation so close to a black hole that nothing—nothing—would ever be able to even get close enough to find him.”

Crowley points at Donna. “And then your idiot Doctor managed it anyway, and let him out! She dropped him into a bloody black hole, but she still did it!”

“But—that’s three thousand years into the future,” Aziraphale says. “So Crowley would have to be correct. It can’t be him.”

“Not if it’s a black hole,” Donna whispers, wide-eyed. “Not if you understand how they muck up the flow of time.”

“No,” Crowley says. “Absolutely not.”

“But what’s _inside_ a black hole?” Donna insists. “It’s everything they’ve sucked up. All the light they can reach, all the matter, all the _time_. They literally bend space time!”

“I said I’d need to remain constantly pissed if I hung about with you. Didn’t I say that?” Crowley scrubs his hands through his hair. “Just. Absolutely copious amounts of alcohol.”

“That’s what you said in regards to the Apocalypse,” Aziraphale reminds him faintly.

“Well, the Darkness is coming, he’s really angry with me, and oh, he might as well be the Apocalypse Take Two, so _yes_!” Crowley yells. “Copious bloody amounts of alcohol!”

“Then why’s he after us? Why did he send those Weeping Angels after me and my Donna?” Wilf asks.

“He said it, Granddad.” Donna sighs and takes her grandfather’s hand. “We’ve hung about with the Doctor, and the Doctor let this Samael person out of a prison he’d been in for…how long?”

Crowley stares at the wall as he tries to do maths around a timeframe that didn’t really have time to measure. “About ten thousand years, give or take a few centuries. Probably longer.”

Donna lets out a shocked gasp. “Oh.”

Crowley picks up the teacup and irritably miracles it full of tequila before he downs it in one swallow. “Yeah. Oh.”


	6. Groundhog Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack Harkness does not like time loops...or whatever stupid reason why they just entered into Friday Number Three.

Friday, 22nd May 2020 (Again)

Jack Harkness glances up from an iPad that fell through the Rift six years ago, one that Toshiko had gotten hold of and—well, Apple hasn’t caught up yet to the original, or to her modifications, so he’s sticking with it. “Did anyone feel that?” It’s déjà vu, but he still has to ask.

“Nope, but if you make jokes about the Earth moving, I’m coming after you,” Luke Smith says without glancing up from the console he’s working at. “Oh, wait—got a Rift spike. It registered right about when you mentioned it, a few seconds after noon.” He frowns at the display. “It’s really small, almost nothing. I doubt it did much of anything.”

Jack frowns and shoves the iPad into his trouser pocket, getting up to get a glimpse of Luke’s monitor. “Let me see.” If it’s the same one he saw yesterday, Jack won’t be surprised. Probably a bit annoyed, but not surprised.

“Sure, Jack.” Luke glances up long enough to pull down the secondary monitor so he can display the readout for anyone who’s interested in having a look.

Luke’s right; it’s really tiny. “I normally don’t feel those,” Jack mutters, and out of habit, glances at the vortex manipulator strapped to his wrist.

Yeah. Just like he thought. Fuck. “Hey, Luke? What day is it?”

“Friday. Why?” Luke asks, his brain already charging along on its own slightly alien track as he returns to what he’d been working on. Jack had asked, Luke had explained, and Jack had resolved that next time, he was just going to call Tosh and have her translate. He was a 51st century native, and still sometimes Luke Smith boggled the hell out of him.

“Right. Yeah. Except before noon, it was Saturday,” Jack says, and then sighs. “And the day before that, same problem. This is my third repeat of Friday the twenty-second in a row.”

Luke glances up long enough to look at him. He’s perfectly Torchwood; he doesn’t immediately dismiss the idea, merely considers it. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” Jack frowns and focuses on that odd feeling he’d felt around noon. “Definitely not good.”

“Why, what happened?”

Jack shakes his head. Nothing _bad_ had happened yet, which was more unnerving than it should have been. “Ianto!”

Ianto Jones limps out of Jack’s office and leans over the railing, the light reflecting off the brace that supports his leg from the knee down. “What? I was busy doing _your_ paperwork, as usual.”

Even if the sentence is a repeat of yesterday, Jack grins up at him anyway. It’s nearly been a decade and he still isn’t really over the fact that Ianto is around again to give Jack shit over his lacking work ethic. “We just had a temporal event. A minor one. What day do you think it is?”

Ianto grimaces. “Oh, God, not another one. It’s Friday, Jack.”

“Nope. Well. It’s Friday _again,_ anyway.” Jack reaches for his earpiece when he feels his personal mobile vibrate in his trouser pocket. “Hello, you’ve reached the sexiest man in the universe!”

“Please, I’m not going to believe that until I’ve actually _seen_ every man in the universe,” Tosh retorts. It’s her usual response, but she sounds tense. “I’m calling for a sanity check, Jack. This is Friday repeat number three, right?”

Jack’s smile drops away. “Yeah. Was it Saturday for you until noon again?”

“Oh, thank God.” Tosh breathes out a sigh. “Yes. I was watching the atomic clock tick down the seconds. It happened right on the dot, just like yesterday. Everything reset back to noon Friday. I double-checked every clock and satellite I can hook up with, and they all insist that it’s bloody _yesterday_. Again! My wife is giving me the Torchwood eye-roll, Jack. Tell me I’m not imagining this.”

“You’re not imagining it, Tosh, not unless we both are,” Jack says, looking up. Ianto’s shoulders slump with the veteran annoyance of any Torchwood employee who’s grown so used to the Rift’s antics that it feels like you’re dealing with a kid who doesn’t know when to stop pushing buttons.

Luke nods and starts typing without being asked. “Looking into that spike, then. Give me a mo, this could take a few minutes. She really doesn’t like being that specific.”

“Stop gendering my Rift,” Jack says, and jogs his way up the stairs to stand next to Ianto. “Any ideas?”

“None. It’s not…it’s not like the other ones, is it?” Ianto asks quietly.

“I don’t think you’d be standing here if this was anything like 1996,” Jack replies, reaching out to take Ianto’s hand. “Also, that was such a fucking hangover when it happened. This was more like someone flipping a light switch for a bulb that’s almost burnt out. Subtle, except the filament still heats up and sparks.”

“Your analogies are going to need updating soon. Everyone’s all but switched completely over to LEDs,” Ianto reminds him with a smile. “Does it feel like trouble?”

Jack shrugs. “We live on top of a Rift through time and space. Everything feels like trouble. Besides, nothing went wrong when this happened the first time.”

“You didn’t mention it,” Ianto protests.

“Yep, totally did. You guys just don’t remember. Tosh, you still with me?”

“Yes, still here,” she replies through his earpiece. “I’m scanning the feeds to see if anyone else on the planet is popping up to complain about repeating days. Honestly, if there is anyone, it shouldn’t take long,” she replies. “Sal, darling, I need tea, not judging.”

Jack can hear the vague sound of Sally Jackson Sato muttering under her breath about Tosh being _retired_. “Rough night, you guys?”

Tosh snorts. “It’s the same difficulty as was when you asked yesterday. Sally’s mother is being _disapproving_ again. It’s bloody 2019, women can get married, and Madam High-and-Mighty Jackson can get over herself.”

“Remember the face Sally’s mother made when I finally convinced Ianto to marry me?” Jack asks, leaning comfortably against the warm heat of Ianto’s shoulder. Ianto makes an amused sound but doesn’t comment.

“You mean when I had a moment of brief hope that my mother-in-law would choke on her own tongue and save us all a bit of grief? Please, I cherish that moment. Nothing’s cropping up—oh. Hello, here’s a ping that didn’t turn up yesterday. Jo Grant.”

“Josephine Grant, former UNIT operative. That Jo Grant?” Jack asks as he straightens in place. UNIT still calls her in for occasional consultations…well, until UNIT was disbanded, anyway.

“She just updated her Facebook page. Says that it’s Friday again, but no one else seems to have noticed that half of Saturday went away again, and isn’t that just typical?” Toshiko pauses. “Looks like it was a brief Wi-Fi update from a mobile. She’s in Tibet somewhere off the beaten path; her signal’s already dropped from satellite view.”

“Figures. She’s getting up there in years, though; I wouldn’t want to drag her into this. Whatever this is,” Jack says. “Your other phone is ringing.”

“Yeah, noticed. Hold on, it’s Owen, so it’s going on speaker.”

Jack sighs and pulls out his mobile, switching from earpiece to speakerphone. “Owen,” he mouths to Ianto, who simply looks resigned to the inevitable. Jack sympathizes; he’s about to relive a very loud conversation.

“What the _bloody fuck_ is going on?” Owen Harper yells without even saying hello. “My wife thinks it’s tomorrow, and really, I retired! Re-tire-d. I’m not Torchwood anymore, but this fucking job is still following me halfway across the fucking planet!”

“Never mind. Sally is in an _excellent_ mood compared to you,” Tosh says. “Diane remembers that it was Saturday, right? For the third time before it decided to be Friday again?”

“How did you—oh, fuck me,” Owen growls. “Who else?”

“Just myself and Tosh,” Jack says. “How ya doin,’ Owen?”

“I was fucking fantastic until noon today,” Owen returns dryly. “You think it’s Saturday, too?”

“No, I _knew_ it was Saturday until noon, got nudged by something that the Rift picked up on, too, and oh, look, the vortex manipulator says it’s Friday again.” Jack smirks at Ianto when his husband smiles. “You need to visit Cardiff with Diane, Owen. Your medical officer replacement doesn’t have half of your charming personality.”

“Bugger that,” is Owen’s relatively polite response. “Chelsea has had five years to develop her own charming personality, and if she’s still too nice, that’s not my doing. Also, that’s terrifying, because the job is supposed to turn you into a cynical, alcoholic wreck.”

“Watch it, those are accurate accusations to be throwing about,” Ianto says.

“Yeah? How’s the leg, Tea Boy?”

“Fuck you.” Ianto lets out a faint huff of laughter. “It hurts some days, and makes me want to kick your arse on others, just like usual. How’s Alaska?”

“Bloody fucking cold, mate, and the locals are saying it’s warm for this time of year.”

“Jo Grant—she’s one of the Doctor’s listed former companions,” Tosh interrupts them.

Jack mentally references one of the lists he keeps in his head. Right, that’s why she’s familiar beyond the UNIT connection. “Yeah. Early days for the Doc, but early 1970s for her. Why?”

“Because we’ve all traveled in time. Diane and myself through the Rift, you and Jo Grant in the Doctor’s ship,” Tosh explains. “That’s the connection. I wasn’t going to mention it if the day didn’t repeat again, but since it did…”

“Right.” Jack draws in a breath and lets it out slowly. “Artron energy. Anyone who’s traveled in time is going to remember that it’s the wrong day.”

“Not that there are many of us left,” Tosh reminds him. “I imagine one of us is going to get a phone call from Emma soon.”

“I hope she doesn’t call Gwen.” Jack feels a flare of guilt and suppresses it. That actually had _not_ been his doing. He’d given up on the old official Retcon policy years ago. Instead, it had been a complete fucking accident. Gwen and Rhys could remember about half of Torchwood’s doings, but not the rest. Given that a lack of information in Torchwood can get you killed, they’d opted for retirement and one of the few pensions Torchwood has ever had to dole out, choosing to spend time with their kids. Then Owen had chosen the same, followed by Tosh, both of them deciding enough was enough after Grey turned up with his misguided attempt at revenge.

At least that hadn’t gone nearly as badly as it did in the original timeline. This time, Jack had been waiting for him.

“I’ll call her as soon as we’re done here,” Tosh says just as Ianto pulls out his phone.

“This is really turning into a conference call,” he says, activating the speaker. “Good afternoon, Martha Jones.”

“What the hell is going on, Jack?” she demands at once. “Mickey and I both know it was Saturday until ten minutes ago, and now it’s bloody Friday! It’s Friday _again_!”

“Join the club, Doctor Jones,” Owen returns snidely. “My wife’s in your boat, and I’m not.”

“Just Tosh and myself in Cardiff, Nightingale,” Jack says. “Oh, and one of the Doctor’s old companions out in Tibet chimed in on Facebook to make light of it today.”

“Yeah, Jo Grant. We saw that pop up when we started scanning the database to see if anyone else noticed,” Martha replies. “We also saw that the Rift monitor in Cardiff recorded a spike a few seconds after noon. Is it related?”

“I don’t think we’ll get anything different from yesterday, but no harm in checking.” Jack glances down at Luke. “Anything?” he calls.

“Not really!” Luke shouts back. “It’s really subtle, whatever it was. It made just enough noise for the Rift to notice, but not really anything she can chart!”

“Stop gendering my Rift!” Jack reminds him. “Did you guys catch that?”

Martha sighs through the phone. “I’ll go out on a limb and say that the Rift isn’t what’s causing time to rewind itself by a day, given that it only picked up on it after it happened. It was dead on for noon, Jack.”

“I don’t think it’s the Rift, either. Any other ideas?” Jack glances at Ianto, listens to silence from the pair of mobiles, and nods. “Everyone who remembers the reset traveled in time, Martha.”

“I was sort of hoping you wouldn’t say that. Two resets were really enough for me.”

“Yeah.” Jack wraps his free hand around the railing. “That was enough for me, too.”

He doesn’t miss the previous timeline at all, mostly because it had turned into a complete nightmare that never seemed to stop. Owen died and hung about for a while before Jack’s brother turned up and made him dead for good. Grey killed Tosh. Cardiff nearly suffered a nuclear accident that would’ve made Chernobyl look harmless. Ianto died during one of the worst alien invasions Jack has ever experienced. Then the laws of existence were tossed out of the window when someone used the energy infusing Jack’s blood to ensure that _no one_ could fucking die. It had just kept going on, and on, loss after loss. The Doctor never returned any of Jack’s calls, which hadn’t helped his state of mind in the slightest.

The last time he saw the Doctor was in autumn of 2009, but that was the first timeline. Thanks to the reset, it’s been even longer than that, now. Jack left the TARDIS with Mickey and Martha in London after that huge Dalek disaster was fixed, and he hadn’t given a bit more thought about it until the Doctor called him up late one night, sounding _very_ depressed, and admitted what he’d done for Rose and Himself Version Two…and what he’d had to do to Donna to save her life. Donna, who’d had to forget—

“Oh, fuck,” Jack whispers, but once again, Luke doesn’t interrupt him. He glances down and finds Luke still absorbed in tracing that first signal. The upper monitors aren’t showing any sign of the second, _massive_ rift spike that got their attention after Friday reset for that first time.

It had been strong, whatever it was. Luke had cheerfully labeled it cosmic levels of powerful while looking like a kid in a candy shop. Thirty seconds of unexpected energy, and then the Rift went back to acting like nothing had happened at all.

“The second spike didn’t happen,” Martha says, sounding a bit unnerved. “Luke would be shouting about it by now."

“Well, at least that’s something different,” Tosh notes. “Nothing else is hitting the internet, though. No one has called into that bloody helpdesk that replaced UNIT’s emergency response number, either.”

“It’d be a waste of time, anyway,” Ianto comments in disgust. “Have you tried talking to those people? It’s worse than calling tech support for a bloody computer!”

“All right. So, we have an energy spike that did repeat itself after time reset, and a second energy spike that didn’t,” Martha says. “That second one is here in London. Unfortunately, our systems weren’t done trying to pinpoint a cause, a source, or an energy type before the noon reset yesterday.”

“Yeah, same here,” Jack admits. “Tosh?”

“Not a chance. I’d be starting all over again,” Tosh replies. “I wasn’t getting anywhere in a hurry, anyway, even after asking for the assistance of the sentient Xylok computer that Luke keeps locked up in his mum’s old house. All he could say was that the energy felt _different_, which isn’t useful at all.”

“_Phenomenal cosmic power_,” Jack quotes, and Ianto nudges him to behave.

“I’d bet you a good bottle of brandy that it’s related,” Owen finally says. “Especially with that whole _not_ repeating bit. That’s someone who sent up a flare and decided maybe not to repeat the event when everything cycled again.”

“We do know it wasn’t the same type of power,” Jack reminds them.

“No, but Martha has a point,” Tosh says musingly. “We do have at least three time-sensitive alien species living on Earth right now under granted asylum status. One of them could have been announcing how much they didn’t like that reset back to the previous day.”

“I’d be happier if someone looked into it,” Owen admits. “Because that would make my wife happy, and that makes my life so much bloody easier.”

“Mickey says the closest triangulation we got for the signal before the reboot is in Soho. Soho’s not that big,” Martha says. “Couldn’t hurt to at least take a look.”

Ianto frowns. “Yes, it very much could hurt. We don’t have anyone in the asylum registry living in Soho.”

“Okay. That makes it a definite. Martha, Mickey, we’re checking it out, but you’re going to wait for me,” Jack says.

“My husband and I are co-heading Torchwood One,” Martha reminds him tartly. “Which is your fault, by the way. It’s our turf; we can check it out.”

“You heard Ianto about the lack of known aliens in Soho,” Jack says, frowning. “If something is wandering around London powerful enough for the Rift to sit up and take notice, you two are going to have the man in front of you who can’t die.”

Tosh sighs. “Jack.”

“Yes, even if sometimes it takes a while to stop being dead!” Jack adds. “I mean it, Nightingale. I haven’t been to London in a few months. It could be fun. Besides, if everyone who’s traveled in time can remember this reset, then I need to stop by Chiswick first.”

“Donna Noble.” Martha sighs. “Oh, good God. I hope her family is still good at distractions.”

“Yeah, I hope so, too. Owen, Tosh, I’ll ring you both the moment I know something, or whenever the problem is fixed. Whichever. Talk to you soon,” Jack says.

“Bye, Jack. Sally!” Tosh is yelling at she hangs up.

“Fix it quick, all right? If this happens again, my wife is going to think she’s stuck in Friday, and she hates that day. Fridays are her busiest flight days, and she’s always exhausted at the end of it.” Owen hangs up without saying goodbye, but that’s typical.

“Give us a ring when you hit London. We’ll be waiting for you. Bye Jack,” Martha says, and her line disconnects.

“Anything else you can give us, Luke?” Jack asks.

Luke glances up long enough to shake his head. “No, I didn’t get much further than Torchwood One. I even logged in to speak to Mr. Smith at home, but he could only say that the energy spike felt _different._ Not all that useful, really.”

Jack nods; that’s exactly what Luke told him yesterday. “Thanks for trying. Keep trying to figure out that signal, huh?”

Ianto gives Jack wry look and shakes his head. “I’ll get your coat. Do you need anything else, Jack?”

“IPad, mobile, Hub comm, wallet, keys, condoms—I’m good.”

Ianto rolls his eyes and makes his way into the office. He tries hard not to let that damned brace slow him down, but some days are worse than others. It’s raining in Cardiff, so, not so great today.

Jack leans against the railing and tries not to think about blood, a shattered femur, and a femoral artery that was attempting to empty itself in record time from a gunshot wound. He lost Ianto once to the damned 456 in September 2010. After the 1996 reset, Jack nearly lost Ianto a second time from fucking friendly fire in 2016.

Ianto hadn’t protested when Jack fired Mitchell for it, even though no one died. If Mitchell botched something so basic as forgetting to be certain of his targets, then Torchwood wasn’t the place for him. Jack punted the man off to be UNIT’s problem, but with UNIT now disbanded by galling political incompetence, Mitchell was probably sitting at home, collecting a military pension, and watching a lot of bad television.

Jack turns around out of long-set habit and allows Ianto to slide his greatcoat up his arms and over his shoulders. Ianto smooths everything into place with his precise hands. “You do realize I want to go with you.”

Jack turns around and takes both of Ianto’s hands in his. “You took the promotion to Second, so it’s your fault you’re staying behind. Besides, there’s no one else I’d trust more to keep the Hub, Cardiff, and this planet in one piece.”

Ianto huffs. “I’d rather be keeping _you_ in one piece.”

“Yeah, well. Let me keep my fantasy about you dying in my bed of old age for a bit longer, huh?”

“You know, eventually, your excuse of, ‘I watched you die horribly once before, and I can’t handle it again,’ isn’t going to work anymore,” Ianto says softly.

“I know.” Jack leans forward and kisses him, relieved when Ianto deepens the kiss. “But let me have at least one more day of knowing I still get to come home to you.”

* * * *

Jack is halfway across the bridge for the M4 when his comm chimes in his ear. He reaches up and activates it, remembering too late that it’s also voice activated now, and the gesture is unnecessary. “Harkness.”

“It’s just me, Jack. You…have a phone call. It came through the main communications system for Torchwood Three.”

Jack raises an eyebrow. “Look, if it’s a phone sex line calling me back, I swear I’m not doing it on purpose.”

Ianto doesn’t laugh. That sets Jack’s nerves on edge. “She’s on a certain emergency list, Jack.”

“Okay. Who is it?”

Ianto sighs. “Donna Noble.”

Jack nearly slams his foot on the brake before his brain takes over and reminds him that getting rear-ended on the M4 would definitely slow things down. “Donna Noble. Was she asking for Torchwood, or for me?”

“Specifically, for you. She also said, and I quote, ‘My brain is not on fire, stop panicking, I’m fine, long story, and I’m not in Chiswick, so don’t bother heading out there.’”

Jack feels a relieved smile stretch across his face. “That’s great news! I wonder how she managed that?”

“Jack.” Ianto doesn’t sound nearly as assured. “She’s in Soho right now.”

“Oh.” Jack flicks on the siren—lights only, not the irritating wail—and keys in the command that will tell local police and other officiants to ignore his SUV. Then he pushes the gas pedal down to the floor, leaping ahead of traffic before he has to skirt around the next set of vehicles in his way. “Where in Soho, Ianto?”

“She says she’d rather tell you herself, since she says she never officially met me,” Ianto replies, “which is accurate from what I can remember. I’m switching the call to your comm now. Be careful.”

“You, too.” Jack waits for the click of the signal exchange. “So, I understand your brain isn’t on fire.”

Donna Noble laughs in response. “That’s how you greet people you haven’t seen in a decade, is it? Good on you, then.”

Jack allows himself a deep, comforting sigh. “You sound pretty good for someone whose head should be burnt. Or exploded. The Doctor was never really clear on which it would be.”

“Have you been keeping an eye on me, Jack Harkness?” Donna asks tartly.

“Had to. Nothing major or anything, just…checking in on occasion.” He hesitates. “I’m sorry. About Shaun and your mother.”

Donna sounds a bit less happy at that reminder. “Yeah. Thanks for saying it, though. Always did wonder who sent the really nice mystery flowers.”

“I couldn’t do anything else. I’m really sorry.”

“Nah. Don’t be. What happened’s not your fault. How’ve you been? Oh, by the way, can you remember both sodding timelines?”

Jack swerves around a lorry that’s trying to take up two lanes on the bridge and considers flipping them off. “Yeah. That’s a thing for you too, huh?”

“It wasn’t before the meta-crisis was fixed, but it is now. It’s a bit weird, to be honest. You still didn’t answer me about how you’ve been, though,” Donna adds.

“Well, the first timeline sucked balls by the end of 2009, and then just kept getting worse,” Jack says bluntly. “When everything reset back to mid-April 1996, I was a pretty happy camper, even if it meant having to do everything twice. So was Tosh—you haven’t met her yet, you’d like her. Sarah Jane had mixed feelings about it, but she still got Luke out of the deal, so that calmed things down a lot. Martha and Mickey were just annoyed about having to plan another wedding. Francine, Martha’s mother, is kind of terrifying about how things _ought_ to be done.”

“Sounds like my Mum used to,” Donna comments. “Oh, and…I saw the obituary for Sarah Jane. Cancer is just awful, an’ she was so sweet. She deserved better.”

Jack swallows. “Yeah, she did. I promised Sarah Jane that I’d look out for her son, so I did. Granted, not sure she’d be thrilled that Luke is working in my branch of Torchwood out of Cardiff, but that man’s brain just really doesn’t fit in anywhere else.”

“Your branch? I thought Three was the only branch of Torchwood remaining!”

“Technically, Two never stopped functioning, though it’s run by one man who is probably an alien, and also the entire manor sometimes disappears for months on end, though our boy inside never seems to notice. I personally blame Scotland,” Jack explains. “I restarted Torchwood One in London on the sly, given how politics are right now with UNIT being disbanded. Martha and Mickey run it together—and no, it’s not anywhere near Canary Wharf.”

“That’s good. People actually remember Canary Wharf, even if it’s still under the terrorist byline. I’m glad it’s Martha and Mickey, too. They’re sensible. Oh, and the Bad Wolf graffiti survived the reset,” Donna adds.

Jack feels a chill prickle along his skin. “I didn’t realize anyone remembered that.”

“Aziraphale found it online. It’s still archived by the newspapers for 2005 and 2009 as potential gang tags.”

Jack files that name away thoughtfully. Aziraphale isn’t familiar, but it’s a start. “I suppose Bad Wolf got stamped into time pretty hard, then.”

“Yeah, it did. She turns up under her real name under the Canary Wharf memorial, which just lists _all_ the names. Otherwise, there isn’t much else except for an old Japanese silk painting from the 1300s. Ol’ Ninth Face is on there, and Rose is only listed as Bad Wolf, but it also has _your_ handsome face on it, Trickster.”

Jack grins in fond remembrance. He hasn’t thought about feudal Japan in a _long_ time. “Yeah, that was kind of an accident. I was still, uh, reforming at the time, trying to learn how to behave myself again. Someone really hot asked me what sort of role I had in society, so I told them I used to be a con-man. Turns out that con-man had a rather specific translation in ancient Japanese, so they…well, we ended up running for our lives. That was a great weekend.”

It had all gone to shit just afterwards, of course, with the Game Station and the fucking Daleks. Jack tries not to dwell on that part overly much.

“Yeah, I can see that. Ninth Face looks like he was such a sweetheart, even in the old painting.”

Jack smiles again. “Yeah, he was. Complete flirt, too. Pretty sure that incarnation of the Doctor was polyamorous, but then he swapped to face number Ten and Rose became his gravitational center. Not that I really blamed him. She was amazing.”

“You, too, huh?” Donna asks in sympathy. “I mean, I’m not—he’s far too skinny for my tastes. But I get it.”

“It was both of them, really, but Rose didn’t swing that way, so, kind of a moot point. Besides, it’s fine. I’m married now! Ianto made an honest man out of me. Kinda. His sister is still sort of furious that I’m prettier than she is.”

“He sounded very particular and professional,” Donna observes. “Would have given me a run for my money in my temp days. Tiger in the sheets?”

“Rowr,” Jack replies, and Donna giggles through the comm before turning it into the worst fake cough ever coughed.

“Then I guess things are going better for you, then, what with the lack of constant ludicrous alien invasions and whatnot?” Donna asks.

Jack steers his way onto the bridge’s breakdown lane and waves cheerfully at the stalled traffic he’s skirting around. “Nah, it’s Cardiff. Still plenty of aliens. London didn’t get that same sort of attention again until after June in 2010, but it’s still been fairly quiet. Most of it was hushed up pretty well, even the Cybermen that sort of, er, emerged from the ground in November 2014.”

“What, like a zombie invasion? Glad I missed that, then. Shaun and I were in the States in Colorado. I _cannot_ ski, by the way.”

“Don’t feel bad. Neither can I.” Jack swears under his breath as he jerks the SUV up onto the median to avoid yet another traffic jam, relieved to be off the bridge and back onto solid ground. “Why are you in Soho, Donna?”

“Long, weird story,” Donna says. “I figured you’d probably want advance warning. I mean, the first time I saw him, I slapped him, and it’s the wrong bloody person to slap!”

Jack frowns. “You’re with the Doctor?”

“No!” Donna sounds frustrated. “My rigged mobile still works fine, but I can’t get a signal to leave Earth! Haven’t you noticed?”

Jack keeps both hands on the wheel instead of slapping himself in the face. “I am so bad at my job.” They’re used to listening to incoming signals, not trying to ping anyone outside Earth’s orbit. Guess that’s going to have to change. Luke will be thrilled to write up those protocols, Tosh will be jealous and want to help, and then he’ll have those two having a technological pissing war via vid conferencing.

Donna laughs again. “No you’re not. It’s just not really obvious unless you need to call outside our particular part of the universe. Anyway, the signal just bounces from relay to relay here on Earth. It’s not going anywhere. So yeah, I would like to see Spaceman again, but I can’t reach him.”

“Okay, so why’d you slap this mystery person, then?” Jack asks. “And really, why aren’t you dead? If the Doctor can’t fix something, that’s usually for a good reason.”

Jack feels a vague flutter of hope and immediately squashes it. A meta-crisis isn’t the same thing as being a fixed point in time. Not even remotely.

God, he’s lived so long now, he isn’t even certain he wants to give up on it all…but he wasn’t kidding about wanting to see Ianto grow old and die a peaceful death many decades from now. Jack just never mentions that he wants to be right there with him, comfortable and so ready to fade away.

Donna sounds like she’s taking a deep breath. “Have I got a story for you.”

* * * *

Jack probably hits the brakes too hard when he arrives in front of Torchwood One’s relocated headquarters in Bethnal Green. It’s a hell of a lot different from the old office buildings that dominated Canary Wharf, which is part of the point. Some of those who’d come back to Torchwood One had been around for that disaster. Luring back certain former Torchwood employees (common sense and common decency required) meant keeping their minds off the butchery Yvonne Hart unleashed with her damned arrogance. It helps that Mickey Smith-Jones and Martha Jones-Smith are good at their jobs: excellent, no-nonsense leaders who know when to bend, when to stand firm, and how to tell the British government to take a flying fuck when someone tries to prioritize politics over the security of the Earth.

He takes a moment to calm his racing heart before retrieving his personal mobile out of his coat pocket. He’d given Donna his number and hung up after memorizing the address she gave him for Soho. He felt the arrival of several text messages vibrating against his side while driving to London, but Ianto would kill him if he scratched the paint on the SUV just to look at a text message. He’d made himself wait, even if it was like an itch that was going to drive him mad.

The first text is literally just that: _Yeah, it’s really not him. I’m bloody well convinced that they’re related, and so is Granddad, but Israfil says wrong species. Still don’t buy it, extra-dimensional beings or not._

The second text, and first photo, is fronted by Donna’s comment: _This is Crowley. Don’t tell him I took this. Mister Techy Sunshine there doesn’t know I snapped his picture._ Beneath that is the photo of a man with features so stunningly familiar that Jack has to take a moment, breathing and staring, before his thoughts do him a favor and kick back online.

Crowley is wearing black-lensed sunglasses with side shields that completely obscure his eyes. He looks a bit older, but the angles of his face, the tilt of his head, even his _ears_ are unmistakable. If not for Donna’s warning, Jack would swear to his grave and back (on repeat) that the Doctor had just given a go of dying his hair flaming red instead of whinging about the lack of ginger. He even _styles_ his hair exactly the same, which just makes his resemblance to the Doctor eerie as hell.

Donna captured Crowley from the chest up, possibly from the other side of a room that looks like the bookshop she mentioned. Crowley is fond of black, with the only bit of color relieving the monochrome is a sort of silver scarf or bolo tie draped over his chest. He’s long and lean, bordering on too thin, and scowling at something off to his right.

“Fuck,” Jack breathes in shock, and scrolls down to Donna’s next text.

_This is Israfil. They’re twins_, is all Donna writes, but she doesn’t need to say more than that. This not-clone of the Doctor was aware that Donna was snapping his photo, but only gave her a side-eyed look that is also mindful of the Doctor in one of his _Are you done yet?_ moods. Israfil’s hair is just as red as Crowley’s, but he wears it long in ringlets that look like tousled perfection. His eyes aren’t hidden by glasses, revealing darker brows than his hair which highlight an icy blue gaze. His eyes aren’t cold, just…different. Almost alien, but not quite, like he’s forgetting to blend in, or is still learning the trick of it. He doesn’t seem to be a fan of black, either; Israfil is wearing a shirt the same color as his eyes. Jack can just make out a complicated pendant on a leather strand around his neck, but it suits him so well that for a moment, Jack honestly considers drooling.

This is almost worse than dealing with the Doctor’s Tenth face and Ten Version Two at the same time. Jack is going to be having vivid dreams tonight. So. Very. Vivid.

Donna labels the next picture as _Aziraphale_. Nice to have a face to go with the name. _He gave us Sanctuary when I asked, and while I’m not all that certain what it means yet, it was something I could *feel* Jack. Like…like a blessing or sommat._

Jack raises both eyebrows. In his time, being granted sanctuary is a huge deal. You’re literally volunteering to lay down your life for those under your protection if the situation calls for it. He wonders if this Aziraphale fellow follows those rules.

The photograph of Aziraphale shows a man with hair so blond it does a pretty good impersonation of white. It’s short, curly, and rather attractively mussed, in Jack’s traveled opinion. He isn’t rail-thin, not like the ginger twins. Maybe a bit stout, but in a way that Jack thinks is more fitting for steadiness in battle instead of hiding behind the scenery. Aziraphale is wearing very outdated glasses while peering down at an equally Victorian book, and doesn’t seem to be aware of Donna’s sneak attack with the camera.

Jack sums him up quickly: blue eyes, very pleasant to look at, dresses like a walking anachronism—Jack can’t really throw any stones there—and a complete academic. Not that it means he isn’t dangerous; most true academics are scary bastards. Jack has a sort-of-working relationship with renowned archaeologist Professor River Song whenever their timelines synch up for a bit. She’s as brilliant as she is violent, and also completely nuts.

The fourth shot is of Donna taking a selfie and giving Jack a sarcastic wave as she does it. She looks all right. A bit worried, maybe, but definitely not on fire.

Then Jack peers closer. She also doesn’t look as if she’s aged a single day. That has to be a side-effect of the Time-Lord/Human meta-crisis, which makes Jack wonder how long it’ll last. Even if she doesn’t live for a thousand years, Jack is so fucking tired of losing people. Just having a friend he knows might make it past the two-hundred mark would be the sort of relief he’d weep over.

_And these are the reason why I’m not in Chiswick right now_, is Donna’s fifth text. It’s a shot taken through a window of what he suspects is her home.

Five Weeping Angels are standing there, lining up around a circle that Jack can’t see.

Jack whistles at the photo. “Yeah, that’s a pretty good reason to pack up right there.” He hasn’t seen that many Weeping Angels clustered in one place in years.

Mickey’s sharp rapping on the window scares the hell out of him. Jack grabs for his mobile, drops it, and then glares out the window as he rolls it down. “Seriously?”

“Hey, not my fault you were involved in…whatever you were doing with your mobile,” Mickey says, entirely unrepentant. “Sorry about the delay. Convincing Tish that yes, she really is up to the job of holding down the fort while we’re out is a full-time job all on its own.”

“She’ll get used to it,” Jack says, and smiles at Martha. “Hey there, Nightingale.”

“Hi, Jack.” Martha arrives at the tail end of a brisk jog down the walk to the car park, a backpack slung over one shoulder. “Oof. Time to hit the gym or something again. I’m really not used to running about like this anymore.”

Jack grins. “Get in. I did warn you guys.”

“Yeah, but London isn’t Cardiff,” Mickey insists. He takes the backseat; Martha walks around the SUV to settle into the passenger’s seat after shoving the backpack into the rear. Mickey catches it and puts it on the floor. They’re both dressed casually, but Jack knows impact-resistant fabric when he sees it. After what happened to Ianto, Jack made certain everyone in the Hub had normal-appearing field gear for mission work. Torchwood One had gone the same route the moment they were cleared to begin working again.

Ianto makes Jack wear shirts woven from the stuff. Jack still finds this extremely annoying, but he has to admit, being bruised by a bullet is nicer than dying from one. “Bag full of goodies, I presume?” Jack asks, putting the SUV in gear.

“Just in case, yeah. Non-lethal, lethal, tagging, bagging, and assorted doohickeys,” Mickey answers.

“Life detectors for everything that isn’t human,” Martha clarifies. “And my medical kit. Never go anywhere without a laser scalpel. I assume you’re carrying?”

Jack pats his coat after making the first turn. “Yeah. Lethal and non-lethal. Luke had so much fun making a retrofit for the revolver that can fire stun projectiles instead of bullets. I can just swap them out if things turn ugly.”

Martha gives him one of those searching glances that Jack refuses to ever, _ever_ tell her reminds him of Francine. “Is this going to turn ugly, Jack?”

“Pretty sure it did that when time started going all _Groundhog Day_,” Mickey comments.

“Weeping Angels are on the menu,” Jack says, and Mickey swears with the true beauty of a London native.

“Great. Anything else we should know?” Martha asks.

“Well, Donna ran into a pair of extra-dimensional healers and is now no longer a walking opportunity to burst into flame from the wrong sort of reminder.”

Jack can feel Martha and Mickey both staring at him, even though he’s in the midst of worrying about traffic again. The GPS uplink from the Hub is showing a mess ahead, so he’ll drop down to the A40 to avoid it when they get to the Old Street split.

“You’re serious,” Mickey finally says. “I thought that _couldn’t_ be fixed!”

“Yeah, so did I.” Jack turns the “I’m busy” official signal back on and starts violating traffic laws, mostly because he still has no patience at all for ground travel. Give him a ship, any ship, any day. “Granted, I haven’t run into many extra-dimensional beings, either. There aren’t a lot of those hanging about even in my century of origin, kids.” He still has a hunch that the Hub dealt with an extra-dimensional bastard due to himself and his entire team Retconning themselves of a week’s worth of memory about a decade ago, but that’s as close as he wants to get to the idea.

“So, she’s involved,” Martha guesses, and Jack nods. “In Soho?”

“Yep.”

“Does she know who set off that spike during Friday number two, the one that didn’t repeat again?” Mickey asks.

Jack nods again. “That she does. It wasn’t intentional, just someone who apparently didn’t remember they could _do_ that.”

Mickey snorts. “Do what, exactly?”

“Donna said, and I quote, ‘I was just fucking _looking_, not trying to be a fucking Bat signal!’

Martha starts laughing. “Oh, I think I like this one.”

Jack picks his mobile up from his lap long enough to scroll back to the beginning of Donna’s texts. “This is Donna’s briefing on the situation, and an introduction to our new extra-dimensional allies.” He holds it out to Martha, who accepts it with a curious look. “Mickey, you too.”

“On it.” Mickey leans forward so he can peer around the seat and study the phone.

“No bloody way,” Martha whispers a moment later.

“Is she _sure_ it’s not the Doctor?” Mickey asks, and then joins Martha in swearing. “No, we don’t need two of them!”

“Speak for yourself,” Jack mutters under his breath, and then clears his throat. “Yeah, she’s sure. They’re Celestials.”

“I don’t know what that is,” Mickey admits. “Donna looks all right, though.”

“Yeah, she does. Hooo boy.” Martha shoves Jack’s mobile into the console tray instead of handing it back over. “What’s a Celestial?”

“Legends, mostly. Extra-dimensional, like I told you, so alien only in the sense that they’re not from Earth.” Jack frowns, trying to dig through far too many memories to provide something useful. “They can exist on this plane of existence as physical or incorporeal beings, but I always had the impression that physical was their preference. Oh, and they’re older than Time Lords.”

“Oh, so, they’re older than one of the oldest species in the galaxy. Great.” Martha huffs out a sigh.

“Collectively older, or just as a species?” Mickey asks.

Jack shrugs one shoulder. “Nobody knows. But since we’re about to go meet these people, you have a few minutes to figure out how to ask someone’s age without being impolite about it.”

“Right. Yeah.” Mickey leans back in his seat again. “Are my kids safe, Jack?”

“If you’re using the babysitter I suggested? Sure. He knows how to keep an eye out for threats,” Jack answers. “Honestly though, these are your kids, guys. I’m more worried about the sitter.”

“It’s Strax. He’ll live,” Martha responds. “Granted, he might be very colorful by the time we pick up the kids. If it ever becomes Sunday again, anyway.” She looks back to Jack. “How’s Steven?”

“He’s almost done with uni,” Jack says, and tries to leave it at that.

“Jack,” Martha repeats.

“Fine. Steven finally clued in on the fact that his ‘Uncle’ Jack doesn’t seem to be aging gracefully, or at all, and he wanted to know why,” Jack explains, feeling his chest tighten. “I told him that I promised his mother I wouldn’t discuss things with him, so if he wanted to know what was really going on, he had to talk to her. They had a fight about it, they’re not speaking to each other at the moment, and they both blame me. Which is pretty typical, to be honest.”

Jack catches a glimpse of Mickey shaking his head in the backseat. “Every time I think my in-laws are a bit off, you remind me that I’m really lucky. How long’s it been?”

“Couple of months. Alice holds grudges like nobody’s business, and Steven got it from her. It’ll work itself out. Eventually.” Jack glances at the map and checks the disaster that is trying to navigate Soho’s collection of one-way roads. “Any suggestions?”

“Hit up a car park that has twenty-four hour parking and walk,” Martha says at once. “There isn’t really any decent parking on Old Compton, and this thing isn’t exactly subtle, Jack.” She looks at his coat. “Neither is your wardrobe.”

“You’d think so, but it’s amazing how many people just ignore a hot guy strolling around in a greatcoat from World War II,” Jack replies.

“Yeah. Well, it _is_ Soho,” Mickey says. “I mean, really, you fit right in with the rest of the weirdos.”

Jack smiles as he tells the GPS to find him a place to park. “Thanks a lot.”


	7. Puzzle Pieces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adam is so annoyed by Friday repeat number three that he sulks in Hogback Wood after the clock rolls Saturday back again at noon.

Adam Young is walking Dog down to Hogback Wood when he feels it. Instinct makes him glance at his new digital watch, which reads 11:59:59 Saturday until it clicks over to noon.

He blinks a few times after that really _odd_ sensation ends. “Weird.”

Then he stares at his watch.

It now reads 12:00:05 Friday. Five seconds after noon on Friday.

How can it be _Friday_ again?

“That’s probably a stupid question, asking how it could be Friday again,” Adam says to Dog, who looks completely bewildered. Adam supposes a former Hellhound probably felt that odd sensation, too. “Bugger. Let’s go home and see if anyone else noticed, or if I just get to be special again, hey boy?”

He detours at the last minute from heading back home and goes to Jasmine Cottage, instead. Newt answers the door when Adam knocks, looking a bit flustered. His glasses are crooked. “Oh! Hello, Adam! We were just—uhm—”

“You guys were being gross again. I know,” Adam says, trying not to smirk at his friend. Newt Pulsifer is really ridiculous a lot of the time, but he’s got a good heart, and he’s really great for playing video games with Adam, at least as long as they stick to gaming consoles and leave the computers alone. “I really don’t wanna interrupt, believe me, but something weird just happened and I wanted to ask you and Anathema about it.”

“Yeah. Yeah, sure.” Newt gives himself a brief shake and opens the door wider. “Come in.”

Anathema is already waiting at the kitchen table, her cheeks flushed, but at least she just acts like everything is normal instead of embarrassing. “I heard you asking about weirdness?” she asks, sliding over a plate of biscuits. She has a health food _thing_, but at least the biscuits are always made from almond flour and butter, so that’s all right.

“Yep. Uhm…what day do you think it is?” Adam asks after finishing a biscuit.

“Friday,” Anathema says at once, and then frowns. She glances at Newt, who shrugs, and turns back to Adam. “Why?”

“Because right before noon, it was Saturday. I was heading down to Hogback Wood with Dog to meet with the Them. And…now it’s Friday, I’m supposed to be in school right now an’ I’m not, and I’m probably going to be in so much trouble,” Adam realizes with an abrupt sigh. “Again!”

Then he stiffens in place, gritting his teeth through an intense rush of—of—joy. That was _joy!_

The intense rush goes away as quickly as it started. _Wow_, Adam thinks dazedly while Anathema tries to get his attention and Newt dithers helplessly.

He’s never really felt anything like that before, even after he got to claim his parents as his _real_ parents and the world didn’t end. That was strong and incredible, and he wants to feel it again, except he’s sort of afraid he might explode.

“Adam?” Anathema has come around to kneel in front of him. “Are you okay, kiddo?”

Adam takes a few experimental breaths. He isn’t exploded. Dog is licking his hand in reassurance, and probably to search for biscuit crumbs. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m…can I use your phone?”

“Oh. Calling the, er, the godparents, I suppose?” Newt still isn’t certain what to make of Crowley, Israfil, and Aziraphale, but he puts up with them because Adam loves them, and because Anathema thinks they’re ridiculous. They both remember enough of the Not-Apocalypse to be pretty accurate regarding Adam’s godparents, really.

“Sure, Adam.” Anathema gestures at the phone in its customary place in the kitchen. “Go ahead.”

Adam shakes off the rest of that weird, leftover daze from two weird things happening, one right after another, and gets up. He picks the handset up from the cradle and dials the number that he memorized last autumn.

“Whatever it is, I didn’t do it. Probably,” Crowley answers.

Adam tries not to roll his eyes. “It’s not Anathema, it’s me. Please tell me why it’s Friday again.”

“I’d love to do that, except we don’t know.”

Adam frowns. “You don’t?”

“No.” Crowley sounds about like usual, but underneath there’s a bit that’s hiding. He’s not lying to Adam, but he definitely doesn’t want to talk about something. “The others think it’s Friday, right?”

“Yeah, they do. But I was looking right at my watch when it happened, and I felt…weird for a moment. Oh, and then five minutes later something lit up like the world’s biggest Christmas tree, and it was _really_ happy—”

“Sorry! Sorry,” Crowley interrupts. He sounds even more embarrassed than Newt did a few minutes ago. “That was me.”

Adam pulls the phone away for a moment, staring at it in bewilderment. Then he puts the phone back to his ear. “That was you,” he repeats.

“Yep.”

“That was weird,” Adam says.

“Look, I already apologized for the Christmas tree thing, want more do you want from me?” Crowley asks in exasperation.

Adam raises both eyebrows. It usually takes a bit more prodding lately for Crowley to lose his temper, so he supposes there are things going on aside from the day-swap. “I just wanted to know why it was Friday again.”

“Answer’s still the same. Look. If you see any statues of angels appear in Lower Tadfield where there weren’t any before, they’re a big problem. If you find one? Don’t blink. They only move when you’re not looking at them. Also, if they really do turn up, they’re not safe to have around, not for anyone. You’re going to have to _make _them go away.”

“You mean…”

Crowley sighs. “Remember how we told you that you’re still learning, so you’re not to muck about with your magic unless it’s life or death?”

Adam tries not to feel very small. He’s not even twelve yet, and it’s right back to this sort of mess. “Oh. They’re that—that sort. Okay. I understand.”

“Good. Otherwise, stay low, stay off the radar, and don’t do _anything_ miraculous unless you need to save a life. Particularly your own, I happen to like the fact that you exist.”

Adam feels a terrible feeling steal into the pit of his stomach. “Crowley? How bad is this?”

“Well, remember when your not-father turned up last August and put on a show?”

Adam swallows. “Yeah? What about him?”

“He’s the civilized one,” Crowley answers.

“Hold on.” Adam turns around and snags another biscuit, cramming it into his mouth. He lets Dog lick the crumbs off his hand again as he finishes chewing. “Okay. Did I really just hear you call Satan _civilized?_”

“No, you didn’t. That’s the problem with forgetting, with being a bloody demon for over six thousand years. I didn’t remember the difference, Adam. In fact, everyone has pretty much forgotten there was ever a difference in the first place. First rule: don’t say that name again, because he’s not your not-father. The names have just been muddled together over the millennia. Second rule: don’t say that name ever again, because that’s a close translation of his original name, and you _really_ don’t want his attention.”

Adam glances over his shoulder at Anathema and Newt, who are both regarding him in loving concern. He has great friends, the best, but this part…he doesn’t think they should hear it. Adam twists things around him just enough so that they won’t be able to understand him. “How scared should I be?”

“Well, I’m the seventh thing in Creation to ever exist, and I’m terrified. How’s that rate?”

Adam gasps in a breath. “Okay. That rates pretty well. Can I call you tomorrow if it becomes today again?”

“Yeah. Checking in is probably a good idea, especially since no one in Lower Tadfield is going to remember that this is happening except for you.” Crowley pauses. When he speaks again, Adam can hear fierceness in his voice, the protective fire of a literal angel. “Listen. If things go pear-shaped, one of us is going to pop out there to get you. We’ll figure out what excuses to make with your parents later, but if things go wrong, we’re not leaving you out there alone. All right?”

“Safe in the meantime, getting a free ride to London if things go pear-shaped. Yeah, I got it.” Adam hesitates. “Can I help with this? I mean, should I?”

Crowley sighs. “Same answer as it being Friday again, Adam. I don’t know. Wait, you’re calling from Anathema’s. If you write down a prophecy for me, can you ask her to have a crack at it?”

“Yeah, sure. Hold on a mo.” Adam finds Anathema’s notebook on the table in a pile of clutter, grabs a pen, and turns to a blank page. “Ready.”

“_This puzzle box must be solved from within, not from without. The pieces will come together within the trap. Each one fits into the other, no matter the divide of time and space. Among them lie two secrets, each a part of the other. When these secrets are laid bare, the trap will collapse_.”

Adam repeats it back to make sure he got it all. “That’s pretty specific. Who’s that from?”

“God.”

Adam frowns. “So if God is available to hand out prophecies, why’s She not doing anything about what’s wrong right now?”

“Same reason She didn’t interfere with Armageddon, or your childhood, or your birth, or all the shit Aziraphale and I have gotten up to over the years,” Crowley replies. “Free will, Adam. She gave us the only thing She could: information.”

Adam wants to scowl, but Crowley has a point. It’s part of the reason Adam thought the Apocalypse was a stupid idea. “Free will. Okay. We’ll take a crack at it. You lot be careful, all right?”

“Same to you, cheeky brat.” Crowley hangs up without saying goodbye, but Adam can’t much blame him. This is shaping up to be, well, Apocalypse-levels of bad.

“Sooo, something’s wrong, I take it?” Newt asks after Adam hangs up the phone and sits back down at the kitchen table.

“Yeah.” Adam tears out the page with the prophecy on it, writes out a second copy, and gives the torn-out page to Anathema. “Crowley is asking if you’ll try to decipher that, since you spent so long deciphering Agnes Nutter’s stuff.”

Anathema’s eyes widen when she sees the prophecy. “I don’t know if I have enough context for this, but I can give it a shot. What else are you writing?”

Adam bends down over the notebook, since he’s going to need to make two copies of this, too. “Well, I’m gonna tell you guys all this stuff, and I’m gonna warn the Them, but I have a feeling you’re going to forget tomorrow when Saturday decides to be Friday again.” He can feel that swap waiting to happen, an itchy and unwanted sort of sensation. Gross. “You lot are all going to sign this so I can prove to you that it’s happening. Sorry, I’m borrowing your notebook, by the way.”

“Why are you going to need to prove it, Adam?” Anathema asks. Adam thanks God—deliberately, and with deep gratitude—that Anathema is a sensible witch. She believes him utterly; she’s just wanting details.

“Because dangerous things might turn up, and you’re going to need to be told about it every time it decides to be Friday again instead of Saturday.” Adam digs the pen a little more firmly into the paper. “I can’t be everywhere, so…”

“Okay.” Anathema reaches out and pats Adam’s left hand, the one not busy writing down every detail about _not_ saying certain famous names and angel statues and not blinking. “You’re a really smart kid, Adam.”

Adam smiles a little. “Thanks.”

* * * *

That night, Adam gets grounded for skiving off the rest of school on Friday. He nearly fibs to his parents, ready to tell them that he’d felt sick and decided to come home but had ended up staying with Newt and Anathema for the afternoon, but then Adam realizes it doesn’t matter. By noon tomorrow, his mum and dad will have forgotten all about it, because it’ll be Friday again.

Adam groans and rolls his eyes up at the ceiling of his bedroom. The day resetting doesn’t dump him back in school, so he’s in for a repetitive cycle of being grounded until all of this blows over. What utter _rubbish_!

He thinks about it, grabs Anathema’s notebook, and shoves it into his pyjama top. He doesn’t know if that’ll keep it from going blank at noon, but saturating it in what makes Adam himself probably won’t hurt.

The next morning, Adam is allowed to take Dog out for the necessary walks a dog needs in order not to make a mess in the house, but that’s _all_ he’s supposed to do. Adam is barely awake for the first trip, letting Dog have his morning run in the back garden. The second time they go out, Adam uses the opportunity to make another copy of the prophecy, along with the other information about statues and Not Saying Names so he can give the new copies—again—to the Them and to Anathema and Newt. The signed ones, he’s keeping for himself. Just seems easier than asking everyone to sign the same thing over and over again.

At one minute before noon, Adam gives Dog a polite nudge. Dog, overjoyed as usual to make Adam happy, starts barking at the door in quick little yips.

“Didn’t you just take him for a walk an hour ago, darling?” Mum asks.

Adam shrugs. “Maybe he wasn’t done? I dunno. I’d better take him out anyway. You know how Dad gets if Dog makes too much noise. I’ll be right back, though.”

His mum nods, gives him a brief kiss on the forehead, and sends Adam and Dog on their way. Adam takes them down the road, making sure they’re out of sight of the house, and then glances at his watch. The same odd sensation from yesterday leaves him feeling a bit off, but sure enough, it’s Friday again.

Adam pulls the notebook out of his shirt and flips to the right page. “Oh, _bollocks_,” he swears under his breath. The pages he wrote yesterday are blank. Even the signatures are gone. His watch taunts him as it joyfully insists that it’s Friday again.

He finds a nice tree stump out of everyone’s line of sight and copies down everything again. He wrote it enough times; it’s not that hard. It’s just really annoying.

“Every bloody day,” Adam mutters, and trudges off to Newt and Anathema’s house. He can’t tell the Them until they’re out of school, ready to gather in Hogback Wood to enjoy the warm spring weather. They’d moved on from pretend pirates to _historical_ pretend piracy, which was wicked and also kind of awful, but Adam figured that sometimes you had to take the bad with the good, or else nobody ever learns anything at all. Wensleydale makes for a rather vicious Bluebeard, so he’ll probably be terrifying when he takes over his dad’s accounting firm, too. Adam just hopes he can keep Ethics from flying out of his friend’s head in the meantime.

After showing everything to a frazzled Newt and a curious Anathema, Adam picks up the phone. “How’s things in London?”

“They’re absolutely peachy,” Crowley drawls back, sounding unimpressed by everything. “How’s Friday number three treating you?”

“Just making plans in case stupid things happen,” Adam says. “Anathema doesn’t remember any of it—and she’s right cheesed off about that—but I wrote down the questions she came up with for you regarding that prophecy.” He has the notebook ready, his re-written copy of Anathema’s questions torn out and resting next to a fresh sheet of paper. “Is that all right?”

“We’re not doing anything else at the moment except arguing over lunch. Go for it.”

“What’s the puzzle box?” Adam asks.

“Well, given how the prophecy references how things need to be solved from within, I’d say the puzzle box is the Earth.”

Adam scrunches up his nose as he writes that down. “How’d you figure that?”

“We’re stuck,” Crowley says, and Adam freezes. “There’s a barrier in the way. It’s occult energy, nasty stuff. Dying souls are still getting to where they’re supposed to be, since not much of anything will ever stop Azrael from doing their job, but otherwise? Nobody on Earth can go Above or Below. We can make brief phone calls with a burst of the right sort of energy to both places, but that’s it. No one from Above or Below can get here, either. No portals, no access, no anything.”

“Well…that sucks,” Adam says blankly.

“Rather does, yes,” Crowley agrees. “It’s not just for the other planes, though. We’ve made a new…uh…friend-thing—”

“Oi, watch it, sunshine!” Adam hears a woman in the background yell. She’s not angry; Adam thinks she just likes to push people’s buttons.

“Anyway, she’s got an alien friend—”

“Wait,” Adam interrupts. “There are aliens. Like, actual, real aliens.” He sees Anathema sit up and take _immediate_ notice.

“It’s a really big universe, Adam,” Crowley says, but he sounds amused, not snide. “I’ll introduce you to my tailor one day. She’s half-Filipino and half…somewhere out beyond Rigel or something, I can’t really remember right now. Anyway, that’s not the point. New friend’s phone can’t reach the alien, either, not like it was apparently supposed to. The signal won’t leave the planet. We, uh, tried to boost her mobile’s signal the way we did our own, but…eh, incompatible energy. We sort of melted her old mobile into technological goop.”

Adam has a feeling it was probably goop that also happened to be on fire. “Okay. So, basically, aliens exist but they’re not gonna be able to help us, and God is saying we’re on our own, good luck, because the Friday reboot thing has to be fixed from here.”

“Basically,” Crowley agrees.

“Fine. Next question. What are the pieces, then?” Adam asks.

“Dunno yet. They could be literal pieces, figurative pieces, people—no idea, but I suspect it’s the last one.”

Adam resists the urge to chew on the end of his pen, mostly because it’s Anathema’s and that’d be rude. “Okay. The time and space part?”

“You, me, Israfil, Aziraphale—we remember that time is repeating itself because of what we really are,” Crowley says. “Extra-dimensional beings.”

Adam blinks a few times and files that away to dwell on later. Being extra-dimensional sounds wicked useful.

“But new friend Donna and her grandfather Wilf have literally traveled through dimensional vortexes in time, and they’re not forgetting when the day resets itself. It’s why I suspect that the puzzle pieces are people.”

“No matter the divide of time and space, so time-travel. Okay.” Adam bites his lip. “Earth isn’t just the puzzle, then. Earth is the trap. Why did someone turn the Earth into a trap?”

Crowley sighs. “Because I made the person whose name we’re _not saying_ very, very angry.”

Adam almost starts laughing, it’s so ridiculous. “Wait. This is actually _your_ fault?”

“Oi, no it isn’t!” Crowley protests at once. “I’m not the one who let the bastard out!”

“Wait. What?”

“Shit. Probably shouldn’t have mentioned that,” Crowley mutters. “Right. So, long time ago, I collected the bastard in question and left him in a hole so deep, in such a completely improbable situation and location, that he should _never_ have been capable of escaping. Someone else, not knowing how to read the seals on the prison, let him out, and…so, yeah, not my fault he’s out, but totally my fault he’s here and probably wanting me to become very dead. Not that he’s shown himself yet. He’s just been sending in friends, instead.”

Adam takes a moment to blow out a long, frustrated sigh. “Hold on, let me get all this written down.”

His hand is cramping by the time he’s done, and he’s listened to Crowley have a conversation with Israfil that was completely weird and untranslatable. At least when Aziraphale and Crowley had what sounded like an argument in Latin, Adam knew what language they were speaking. “Okay. I’ve got it. What are the two secrets?”

“No idea.”

Adam is about to note that down when he hesitates, scowling. “Hey, don’t you do that. This isn’t the time for fibbing!”

“Fair. Sorry. It’s…” Crowley falls silent.

“It’s what, Crowley? Come on. If you want Anathema’s help, she needs these answers.”

“I’m one of those two secrets, and no, I can’t tell you what the secret actually is,” Crowley continues before Adam can ask. “If I did that, it wouldn’t be a secret anymore, and there goes the advantage for the home team.”

“Yeah, fine, all right. What about the other secret, then? If you’re one secret, then it sounds like it’s talking about you and Israfil,” Adam says. “That ‘each a part of the other’ bit.”

“No. It’s not, and that’s the problem. Israfil is the only being on this planet who is a part of me, and me him, but that _isn’t_ a secret.”

“Could it be you and Aziraphale?” Adam tries, even though he blushes when he says it.

“We’re dating, not joined at the hip,” Crowley replies dryly. “No. And before you ask, I don’t think it’s you, either. We’re not related, we don’t share a connection except for being the same species, and…honestly, I think you’re only involved _because_ of your species.”

“Okay. So…I guess…I’ll phone tomorrow. Let me know if more pieces have shown up by then,” Adam says. “I’ve gotta hang up now. Anathema and Newt have read through everything I wrote down for them, and they’re looking sort of bug-eyed, especially about the aliens bit.”

“Have fun with that.”

Adam does not have fun with that. It takes a good half-hour just to calm Newt down from completely hysterical to just sort of hysterical. At least Anathema just wants to dance gleefully around her cottage, shouting about how she knew it all along, she was right, and bugger to some editor bloke from one of her favorite magazines that rejected her article about it.

Re-informing the Them later that afternoon is way easier. Granted, that’s before Pepper insists she wants one of the angel things to turn up in Lower Tadfield so she can kick its arse. Adam and Dog let out a matching set of resigned sighs and go about informing the Them, _again_, why that is a terrible idea—even if it’s Pepper.

* * * *

Adam is so annoyed by Friday repeat number three that he sulks in Hogback Wood after the clock rolls Saturday back again at noon. Today, he’s resolved that he’s going to deal with telling the Them about the stupid angel statues and time repeating before he tells Newt and Anathema. Besides, the only thing Anathema had to apologetically say about the prophecy, even after being given more information, was that they were going to have to wait for that other Secret to turn up. Adam is still going to call Crowley later and tell him, but it’s the sort of obvious thing even his godfathers will already have figured out.

Probably, anyway. They’re more capable than the standard adult, but they can also be so completely oblivious that it sometimes drives Adam mental.

This time, Adam cuts Pepper off before she can declare her desire to kick a dangerous stone angel’s arse. “For one thing, kicking a rock makes your foot hurt, so kicking a statue probably wouldn’t feel much better,” Adam reminds her. Pepper scowls before conceding the point. “Second of all, Crowley seemed like, _really_ worried about these things. These aren’t ideas, not like the things we dealt with at the airbase. The angel statues are real, and I don’t think we wanna be messin’ about with them. Not ’less we have to.”

“How come you can remember it being Friday for a third or fourth time, and we can’t?” Brian asks.

Wensleydale shoves his glasses back up his nose. “Mrs. Kilgore is _so_ angry with you for skiving off of school after lunch, by the way. She said she was going to call your parents and everything.”

“Well, it’ll be the third time I’ve been grounded for the same thing, so I’m not much fussed,” Adam says in complete honesty. “I can remember because I’m…well…different.”

“Yes, but it’s a good different,” Pepper insists, giving him a very firm glare.

“Yeah, all right, good different. Still means I’m stuck on the sidelines watching a…a time loop happen.” That’s the word he’s been trying to think of. Adam read it in one of his science fiction novels once. Not that the time loop in that story worked out very well for most people involved or anything, though. Fortunately, this is real life; Adam is an extra-dimensional being with other extra-dimensional beings for godparents, and really, if they can stop the Apocalypse, they can stop this, too.

They make the same plans Adam worked them through the previous two Friday afternoons. He reminds them not to use the S-word—“Not _that_ S-word!”—and then they discuss the statues. If they come across a random angel statue, Adam goes to the front, because he’s the one that can go the longest without blinking. If they get surrounded, they each take an angel and stare while Adam makes them go away. He wonders if just willing them to float around in orbit with all the satellites and space debris is Away enough.

“All right. Let’s go tell Newt and Anathema what’s what.” It’ll be the first time since the stupid time loop began that Adam has taken the Them to Jasmine Cottage, but it feels like the right thing to do.

Mostly, though, Adam wants something to happen that’s a bit different from the last two repeated days. This time loop stuff is _dull_. Besides, it’s nearly four-thirty in the afternoon now. That should give Anathema and Newt plenty of time to be done being gross. Interrupting the grossness two days in a row was really too much.

“We can watch Newt panic about it,” Pepper says with a bit of glee.

Adam wants to say something about that not being nice, but it’s Newt, and it_ is_ sort of funny. Besides, when Newt stops panicking, he does get smart again and start thinking. Most adults can’t manage that.

“Oh, _shit_,” Brian whispers, and that’s when Adam looks up to see the angel statue blocking the path that leads to Jasmine Cottage. He’s so glad he was already in the lead, the others behind him.

“Language!” Wensleydale hisses, and then swallows loudly. “Is this a bad time to mention that I blink a lot?”

Adam keeps staring at the angel, willing his stupid eyes not to blink. He’s a magical extra-dimensional not-demonic being; he can handle it. The angel really does look like a motionless, grey, weathered statue, except for the part where it’s definitely not where it belongs. It’s standing with its hands covering its face, wings outspread, like it’s mimicking a grieving angel.

_Weeping Angel_, Adam thinks, and feels his eye muscles twitch. All right. It’s definitely time to send this thing Away—

A loud snap to his left startles Adam so badly that he blinks in instinctive reflex. When he opens his eyes again, the angel is a _lot_ closer, its arms outstretched. It also looks seriously angry, like it’s mad that it couldn’t get to them before Adam looked at it again. Adam takes a shaky breath. At least it’s still a good ten feet away from them.

“Uhm. Adam.” Brian sounds terrified. “There’s another one.”

“I can’t turn around and look at it, or this one will eat us or something!” Adam protests, not taking his eyes off the one in front of him.

“We’re all looking at this one,” Pepper reassures him. She sounds as angry as the first angel looks. Adam really admires that about her, even if he’s a bit worried she might pick a fight with something weird one day and get turned into paste.

“Still blinking a lot!” Wensleydale gasps out.

“Yeah, but it’s all three of us staring it down,” Brian says. “We just don’t all blink at once, right?”

“It’s got _teeth_,” Wensleydale whispers. “Like, really big teeth.”

“Yeah. Mine, too,” Adam responds. He takes a breath and tries to collect himself. He knew what to expect about the Apocalypse, and exactly how to stop it, like it was already just sitting in his head, waiting to be found. This isn’t even remotely the same thing.

Adam has to admit, at least to himself, that he’s really scared. He can’t be, though. He promised the Them that he’d keep them safe. He promised.

He blinks again when the angel in front of him suddenly sort of explodes into dust and fragments of rock. The echo of a sharp, solid _whack_ echoes through Hogback Wood. “What the hell!” he squeaks, but he isn’t being eaten by a creepy angel statue.

“Sorry!” When the dust clears, the Weeping Angel doesn’t have a head anymore. Israfil is standing behind it, holding a cricket bat and looking furious. His blue eyes are literally burning with ethereal fire. “Are you all right?”

“If you’re killing these stupid angel statues, there’s another one over here!” Brian reminds them with a panicked shout.

Israfil turns his head in a quick, too-fast-to-be-human motion, and his eyes narrow. He hisses, leaps forward like gravity doesn’t exist, and readies the cricket bat for another go. The second angel that tried to sneak up on them doesn’t look angry anymore. It just looks scared.

“Do you have to?” Adam finds himself asking. “It’s scared.”

Israfil bites his lip in regret. “I’m sorry, Adam. They’re not really alive; they’re just constructs from the War. I’m sorry. There’s nothing about them that can be fixed. They don’t know how to do or be anything else than what they are.”

“No free will,” Adam whispers, and Israfil nods. Adam closes his eyes and flinches when there is another solid _whack_ as the cricket bat destroys the other angel statue. When he opens his eyes again, the angel’s head is gone. The stone is different, pale and faded, without any feel of being alive to it at all. Adam glances over and realizes that the first angel statue is half-gone, slowly disintegrating into a pile of gravel.

“Wicked,” Pepper says in complete approval. Brian nods in agreement. Wensleydale looks as if he’s about to sick up.

Israfil scans the trees around them, his eyes still giving off a faint glow. They’ve sort of gone back to being more like a human’s, but his pupils are reptilian, not round. Adam’s never seen Israfil do that before, but since he and Crowley are twins, he supposes that it make sense.

It also distracts Wensleydale. “Actually, why do you have reptile pupils?”

“I can see better in shadows and darkness this way. I see more color, specifically,” Israfil answers. “You’re remarkably calm about this.”

“No, totally faking it!” Brian says at once.

“I’m totally calm,” Pepper retorts. She means it, too.

“Well, last August I sort of killed the idea of Famine, and angel statues just tried to kill us, and Adam says we’re stuck in a time loop, so…” Wensleydale shrugs. “I can handle scary reptile pupils on the bloke who just saved us?”

“Fair enough.” Israfil takes a quick look at the Them before he hands the cricket bat to Pepper. “It’s blessed, so yes, it will take out those statues. No more of them should turn up once Adam leaves with me, but if they do, get rid of them. Brian, Wensleydale, the two of you get to stare down the statue so it won’t move. That will give Pepper enough time to sneak up on it and knock its head off from behind. It’s simple and it works; stick to that sort of plan and you’ll be fine.”

Pepper’s eyes widen in glee. “Got it!”

“Maybe I can just hold my eyelids open with my fingers,” Wensleydale says in utter resignation. “Or better yet, maybe there won’t be any more of these things.”

“But—why is Adam leaving?” Brian asks.

Israfil sighs. “The angel constructs came here specifically to find him, that’s why. Their creator was probably hoping to turn Adam into a bloody bargaining chip.” Israfil closes his eyes for a moment, and when he opens them again, his eyes are normal. Adam also felt a brief pulse of some bit of magic or other happen, but can’t figure out what it is.

“Go home, all of you. Make up an excuse for a sleepover in whoever’s house feels safest. Stick together. Don’t worry about trying to get permission; you’ll find that your parents have just decided that it’s a wonderful idea for you lot to spend some extra time together this weekend. It lets your parents get up to their own mischief. I’m sorry to rush you, but go. Right now. Run!”

The Them respond to the urgency in Israfil’s voice and turn back, running in the direction of the main village. Adam hopes they choose Pepper’s place for the sleepover; her grandmother and Pepper’s baby sister should be enough to terrify any stupid angel statue into leaving them alone.

Adam glances down at Dog. “Go with them, Dog. Look after them while I’m gone, please.”

Dog whines and nuzzles Adam’s hand. He doesn’t want to go, but Dog is also the sort of hellhound to understand why Adam is asking. The Them are the most important people in Adam’s life aside from his parents and his slightly nutter godparents. Dog barks once and then chases after the Them.

Adam feels the last few minutes catch up at once and has to spend a moment bent over, catching his breath. “Things went pear-shaped, didn’t they?”

“Yes. They very much did.” Israfil reaches out; Adam straightens up and takes his offered hand. Without the ethereal glow in the way, it’s easy to see that Israfil’s eyes are red-rimmed from crying. “Let’s go.”

Adam walks with Israfil through the woods, skipping the path to reach the closest edge of Lower Tadfield’s boundaries. Something about Lower Tadfield means people can’t just teleport in and out. They either walk or they drive, and really, Adam is fine with that. “What happened, Israfil?”

Israfil lifts his head as they cross over that invisible boundary line, taking another look around for any more stupid angel statues. “Crowley’s been discorporated.”

Adam stares at him in disbelief. Crowley didn’t even manage to do that to himself during the actual Apocalypse. “But—that just means he needs a new body. He’s Upstairs and he’s fine, right?”

Israfil shakes his head. “It’s…it’s worse than that.”

“Oh,” Adam realizes, his heart clenching painfully in his chest. “The Earth is closed off. The locked puzzle box. Crowley can’t get back.” Then he sees the expression on Israfil’s face, and his squeezed heart decides to drop down into his stomach. Israfil looks very young, terribly upset, and really frightened. “Israfil?”

Israfil struggles for a moment, and Adam lets him, because he doesn’t know what else to do. “There is another player in the game, someone powerful enough that Crowley deliberately didn’t tell you about them so you wouldn’t even give her a thought. She was already an incorporeal being, so when she killed his body…she dragged him Downstairs with her.”

Adam gapes at him, horrified. “But—angels can’t go to Hell! Can they?”

Israfil looks at him in a way that Adam finds completely bewildering, because he doesn’t know what that emotional disaster even means. “Yes, but it’s usually just a quick trip, an official visit, that sort of thing. This was very much _not_ that.”

“Because it’s about revenge,” Adam says around the lump in his throat, and Israfil nods. “Hell is closed off, too. How are we going to get him back?”

They have to get Crowley back. Aziraphale is the one who knows all the rules and how to go around them. Israfil cleans up the mess and reminds everyone not to be so obvious about things. Crowley is the one who always knows exactly which rules to break just to make things easier on everyone.

They’re supposed to be breaking a puzzle-trap, and Crowley is one of the pieces. They _have_ to get him back!

Israfil reaches out and gathers Adam close. “I don’t know, Adam,” he admits quietly. “Hold on. We’re going back to London the direct way.”

“Okay.” Adam wraps his arms around Israfil’s waist. He closes his eyes, and the feel of the world around him disappears.


	8. Zaazenach

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If someone were to ask Donna Noble how long it takes for everything to go terribly wrong, she'd tell them it depends on how long it takes for some idiot to open his bleedin' mouth.

“I haven’t pulled stake-out duty in a long time,” Donna comments, sipping at her coffee. A very large sun hat is shielding most of her face, which Aziraphale thoughtfully provided. It looks completely ridiculous and fifty years out of date, but mostly she used the opportunity to borrow an extra pair of Crowley’s sunglasses.

Crowley is seated next to Donna, leaning back with his chair at a tilt, his booted feet propped up on the table as he reads a newspaper. “What, did you and your Doctor friend spy on people for fun?”

Donna leans back enough to see that, behind the cover of newspaper, Crowley is looking at the stock market listings. “No, we’d just hop out and interact with them directly. Bit more fun that way. You are a glutton for punishment.”

Crowley’s eyes flicker up to meet hers. The sun is strong enough that she can see the hint of his slit pupils even through the dark lenses. “The stock market is nothing but chaos with numbers attached to make it look intimidating. Also, pulling coins from the firmament is one thing. Pulling millions of dollars out of the firmament gets you into trouble.”

“So you play the stock market, then,” Donna says. “Wouldn’t a lottery ticket be easier?”

“Pfft. Rigged system,” Crowley mutters. “I understand chaos. Lots of practice at it. How the hell do you think I own an entire building in Soho?”

“Thought it might’ve been a situation like Aziraphale’s, since it’s rather obvious thanks to the big sign out front that he’s owned that place since 1604,” Donna replies.

“I lived in Mayfair until this past autumn.”

Donna grins. “That really explains everything.”

Israfil is at the table behind them, sitting back far enough that the awning is doing a good job of making him shadowed and largely unnoticeable. “He was living in a bloody _modern_ cave. It was ridiculous.”

Crowley sighs. “I do not mock your blue kitchen, brother.”

“It is _very_ blue,” Donna agrees, biting back a smile. Then a flash of faded navy blue catches her eye. “Oh. Two o’clock,” she whispers. “They’re on the other side of the walk. Bloke with the greatcoat. Mickey and Martha are just behind him.”

Crowley folds down a corner of the newspaper so he can watch as Jack, Martha, and Mickey round the corner at Frith Street, checking street numbers for the address Donna gave them on Old Compton. “And here I thought Aziraphale was a walking anachronism. It’s like someone yanked that man out of World War II.”

“At least the other two dress like they live in this century,” Israfil comments. “The walking anachronism is cute, though.”

“Please stop telling me those things.” Crowley raises an amused eyebrow as Jack tries the door to the building. Donna smirks; Crowley asked his admin, Carol, to participate in what had been dubbed a prank against an old friend, strictly for Donna’s sake. It isn’t even a lie, not really. Carol is probably in the little lounge behind her desk, eating biscuits and giggling as she ignores the buzzer.

“That’s impact-resistant fabric they’re wearing,” Crowley says. “It’s expensive stuff, and I say that as someone who bought a building in Soho.”

“Impact resistant fabric?” Israfil asks.

“It’s cutting edge stuff. The Americans developed it—their reasons for doing so are _really_ depressing, don’t ask—but I suppose if your job is running around dealing with alien invasions, it’s a sensible business expense.” Crowley closes the newspaper and then folds it in half. “It’s bulletproof fabric. Mostly bulletproof, anyway.”

“Bet it’s not Dalek-proof, though,” Donna adds as Jack turns to face Mickey and Martha.

“Nobody’s home, or at least not answering the door,” Jack is saying to them. “I wonder if it’s the right address.”

“It’s definitely not a bookshop, not ’less it’s on one of the upper levels,” Mickey adds.

“That’s because Donna gave you the wrong address on purpose,” Crowley says to them directly. Donna snorts out a laugh as _all three of them_ jump like they’ve been goosed in the arse.

Jack hones in on them immediately. Crowley doesn’t bother to move; he just watches them approach as if he has all the time in the universe. Which, fair, he probably does.

Donna takes off her sunglasses and offers the three a cheerful wave. The moment they’re off her face, though, Crowley snatches the sunglasses back. “Give me those, you bloody thief.”

“Not really my style, anyway,” Donna teases him as the others cross the street to join them at the little corner café. “Too steampunk. Like that Dalek video you lot showed me on YouTube.”

“The giant roaming pepper pots have a name?”

“Wow,” Jack says in amazement, staring at Crowley. “That’s seriously fucking creepy. It isn’t just your face—you sound _exactly_ like the Doctor.”

Crowley snorts. “I know. I’ve seen a video of that man speak. Not my fault, not my doing, and dear _God_, why do you smell like a brothel?” he asks in sudden distress. He grabs Donna’s hat from her head and shoves his face directly into it.

“Why am I the only one with manners?” Israfil stands up and steps forward so that London’s off-season cheerful sunshine brightens his hair and reveals his pale features. “Hello. I’m Israfil.”

Israfil holds out his hand to Jack, who looks entertainingly boggled before he shakes it. “The one trying to pry that scent out of his nostrils is Crowley, my twin brother. I’m certain you already know Donna.” Israfil pauses, one side of his face quirking up. “My brother’s right. You really do smell…rather intense. Can’t you tone that down a bit?”

“Captain Jack Harkness, head of Torchwood Three out in Cardiff, nice to meet you, and sorry, no can do,” Jack replies with a bright, wide grin. “Natural pheromones. They come with the package.”

“Great. So you’re entirely distracting for two reasons then,” Israfil says, which just makes Jack’s grin widen. Donna glances up at the sky and sighs.

“Sorry, manners, you’re right,” Jack says. “Donna, give me a sec, and then yes, I will hug the stuffing out of you, promise.”

“That’s more like it.” Donna glances over at Crowley, who has released her hat. “Better?”

Crowley looks irritably thwarted. “I stopped breathing, it’s just easier that way.”

Jack introduces the others properly. “Israfil, Crowley, the lovely couple behind me is Doctor Martha Jones-Smith and her husband, Mickey Smith-Jones. They co-head Torchwood One here in London.” Israfil nods politely at them; Donna is busy trying not to laugh at the way Mickey and Martha are both blatantly staring at the skinny ginger twins.

“Charmed, very much glad the two of you do not _also_ smell like a brothel,” Crowley says with a scowl. “Also, we’re not aliens, don’t fall under your jurisdiction, so don’t even bloody well start.”

“Don’t mind him. We’re all a bit cranky that we got one normal Friday, followed by three repeats of the same bloody day.” Donna stands up from the table and gets her promised hug from Jack. Crowley can whinge about brothels all he wants, but Jack Harkness smells _fantastic_. He also gives her a brief spin around, laughing in absolute delight.

“Oi, put me down!” Donna tells him, and ends up face to face with Marth and Mickey. “Hallo! We didn’t really get to speak much the first time 2009 happened—specially not me to you, Mickey boy.”

Martha finally smiles and reaches out to grip Donna’s hands. “You’re really all right. Truly?”

“It’s been nearly five days, and except for some really irritating maths and whatnot following me about, I’m fine. Really am. Right as rain, bloody sunshine and roses, rainbows and unicorns.”

“Fuck rainbows,” Crowley mutters, but Donna decides to roll her eyes and ignore him.

Mickey is the one to draw her into an outright hug. “It was a hard job, being a companion to that madman,” he murmurs in her ear. “Glad to see you come back out the other side.”

Donna smiles. “It was worth it. Still wanna slap the Doctor, mind, but it was all worthwhile, an’ I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Well, Granddad takes priority right now, but maybe one day.”

“You’d have to get him to answer a phone. Ever,” Jack says, irritation bleeding into his voice so easily that it must have been festering for a long time. “None of us have seen him in person since autumn of 2009. The _first_ 2009.”

Donna frowns. “That’s really odd. That man always answered his phone when it rang. Did you try the mobile?”

Martha and Mickey both glance at each other. “He’s got a mobile?”

“Yeah, I made him get one,” Donna says. “He can’t exactly take the phone inside the TARDIS _with_ him if he’s gallivanting about, but he could shove the mobile in a pocket of that oversized coat of his. Meant I could always find his skinny hide if he decided to go off and wander.”

Crowley abruptly stands up. “Why didn’t you mention the mobile before?”

Donna shrugs. “You didn’t ask. Why, what’s the difference?”

“Signals. Signal types. A land line, or an alien converted land line, whatever the hell is on that ship, doesn’t transmit data the same way a mobile does. It’s a _broadcasted signal_. Why do you think Above and Below all have bloody mobile phones?” Crowley asks. “Well, no, being fair, only the smart ones Below bothered with mobile phones. Still.”

“You’re not melting my other mobile trying to make the attempt,” Donna retorts. “Melt someone else’s mobile this time!”

“Okay. This is still really bloody weird, but I have to ask,” Mickey interrupts before the bickering gets worse. Or better. It’s one of Donna’s favorite pastimes, really. “Are you and your brother there related to the Doctor?”

“Wrong _species_,” Crowley snaps. “I’ve met this Doctor, but—no!”

“You’ve met him?” Jack asks, and Donna can all but see his estimation of Crowley rise several dozen notches. It’s just a thing with all of them, she supposes. If the Doctor is willing to put up with someone for more than five minutes, then there must be something there worth looking at. “When?”

“1020 BC, up the coast from Troy,” Crowley answers. “She’s bloody annoying.”

Martha steps forward, wide-eyed. “Excuse me, did you say _she_?”

“Yeah. Why? Do you people have gender issues? Because really, it’s beyond time to outgrow that nonsense,” Crowley retorts. “Used to be no one gave a damn, and then half of humanity had to go and decide to be _repressed_ for the last few millennia.”

Jack suddenly slaps himself in the face. “OH, I REALLY _AM_ BAD AT MY JOB!”

“You’re bad at subtlety, too.” Crowley glares at the nearest pedestrians until they decide to ignore the shouting walking anachronism that is Jack Harkness.

“New Year’s Day 2019! That damned video of the Dalek that looked like it’d been to a steampunk convention!” Jack exclaims. “There was a woman in that video that didn’t crop up with an ident, and I just assumed unidentified alien when there was no sign of the TARDIS in any of the footage. Blonde hair, oversized grey coat?”

Crowley nods. “That’s her. Well, it was her at the time. Donna tells me these people regenerate and don’t do a damned thing in order, so who bloody knows what this Doctor looks like now.”

“My turn again. Donna, why did you give us the wrong address?” Mickey asks. “That is definitely not a bookshop.”

Donna jerks her thumb at Crowley. “Paranoia.”

“Justifiable paranoia, thank you.” Crowley glares at Jack, Mickey, and Martha. “I’m not going to let just anyone walk into my boyfriend’s shop—his _home_—without vetting them. Not with what’s at stake right now.”

Mickey groans. “So, it’s worse than a bloody time loop and Weeping Angels, then.”

“Well, there’s a powerful extra-dimensional entity who is very, very angry with me, so, yep,” Crowley answers. “And he brought friends, or just convinced others to join in for fun. Whichever.”

Donna doesn’t know if the others can see it, but she can; Crowley’s eyes have started darting about behind his glasses, like he’s looking for something. She glances over and notices that Israfil is doing it, too, and tries hard to step on a sudden lurch of fear. She’s safe, they’re all safe.

Safe is relative, but no one is screaming yet. Donna always took comfort from that when she could.

“He’s probably angry with me, too,” Israfil says.

Crowley glances at his brother. “Didn’t you hit him in the face once?”

Israfil looks thoughtful. “Might’ve done. That’s the trouble with being dead for six thousand years. Some things are still a bit fuzzy.”

“Dead for—” Martha squeezes her eyes shut for a moment. “All right, hold on. This isn’t working. Can we head off somewhere and have a much more coherent conversation in private?”

“Sure. I want to figure out what the hell is wrong with Captain Harkness’s lifeline, anyway,” Israfil agrees, but then he is pulling something out of the air and tossing it to Crowley.

Crowley catches it on reflex, not looking away from whatever now has his direct attention. “A bloody cricket bat? Really?”

“I like cricket,” Israfil explains, smiling. “It makes no fucking sense at all, therefore I don’t have to worry about the fact that I don’t understand it.”

Donna sees it next, and can’t help her sudden, sharp intake of breath. “That would be the other reason for the paranoia.”

A Weeping Angel is standing on the other side of the street, posing innocently, wings outspread. It’s right in front of the door to Crowley and Israfil’s building, but it’s facing them, waiting.

“Oh, shit,” Jack says as he turns around and spies the angel.

“We were followed.” Mickey shakes his head. “Yeah, all right. That’s not really much of a surprise, either.”

“Did you bring anything lethal that can be used around pedestrians who’re wandering that close by?” Martha asks him.

“No need.” Crowley takes off his glasses and tucks them away in his jacket without breaking eye contact with the angel. “I don’t need to blink.” Then he strides directly across the street, cricket bat in-hand. He also flips off a car that comes down the street too fast, ignoring it when the car screeches to a halt and lays on the horn.

Donna tilts her head. “I know that Weeping Angel hasn’t moved, but…is it just me, or does it look like it’s trying to get away?”

“Oh, it’s probably desperate to get away.” Israfil is regarding the angel with similar reptilian slits in his ice-blue eyes. Must be why Crowley doesn’t need to blink all that much, Donna decides, if it’s a reptilian thing. That ouroboros pendant probably isn’t just for show. “That’s the construct’s greatest advantage, and their biggest weakness. Once they’re caught? There is nowhere else to go.”

“You know, I know it’s Soho, and Soho is used to weird shit, but why is everyone ignoring the bloody angel turning up in the middle of the walk?” Mickey asks.

“The twins can do a version of that perception filter thing the TARDIS pulls,” Donna says. “Can’t do anything for _loud_,” she adds, directing that part at Jack, “but otherwise?”

Martha and Donna both flinch when Crowley abruptly lifts the cricket bat and straight-up knocks the Weeping Angel’s head from its shoulders. Someone on the walkway swears about debris falling off one of the old buildings again, but doesn’t notice the rolling, disintegrating head that rolls past their foot. No one notices the Weeping Angel’s body begin to fall into a pile of rubble, either.

“It’s dead useful,” Donna finishes, smiling. “No pun intended.”

Crowley walks back across the street without being accosted by traffic this time. He tosses the cricket bat back to Israfil, who catches it and rests it over his shoulder. Then Crowley glares at Jack. “What?”

Jack grins. “I really love your eyes. They’re gorgeous.”

Crowley leans away, angry and baffled, as if Jack just offered to give him a disease. “Uh…yeah. Thanks.”

“Don’t hear that often, huh?” Jack asks, unoffended.

“Not from humans, no.” Crowley gives Jack an up-and-down glance. “Or whatever it is that you are.”

“Slightly genetically altered human, but still human,” Jack explains. “Just three thousand years ahead of schedule.”

“That explains the weird loop your lifeline is doing,” Israfil mutters. “Where are you from, anyway? You weren’t born on this planet.”

Jack looks surprised. “Boeshane Peninsula. It was a colony world—and it’s a hell of a long way from here, out in the Virgo Cluster.”

“You mean the Frond of Erua. The Furrow.” Crowley narrows his eyes. “Buayochanan Paenesos. I think Raguel named that one.”

“That’s not translating for me,” Martha says after a moment. “What does it mean?”

“Nothing important,” Crowley replies breezily, and Donna knows at once that it must be intensely private. Jack has an excellent poker face, the darling, but Donna has parts of a Time Lord’s ability to think and observe and coalesce data in her head. Jack was _not_ fine with that translation. Hearing those words hurt him just as much as they made him feel _recognized_.

Israfil interrupts Donna’s thoughts. “I don’t smell any other constructs lurking about. Don’t see any, either. If you wanted a private place for a discussion, we should go. Now.”

“If any more of those fucking things turn up, I’m blaming you lot,” Crowley says, but he’s already turned on his heel, striding down the walk in his loose-limbed way. It’s starting to remind Donna of gliding, except there are feet involved. It also makes her bloody glad that Israfil tries to walk like a normal person instead of someone whose joints possibly don’t exist.

“You can smell a Weeping Angel?” Martha asks, as if they’re doing nothing more than making polite conversation while exploring Soho’s shops. Then again, in Donna’s experience, they are. They’ve all seen too much weirdness for it not to be.

“It’s like rotting wet rock, which isn’t really a thing that exists,” Israfil answers her. “Sort of makes it hard to describe for anyone who doesn’t have our sense of smell.”

Stepping through the bookshop doors has felt like a warm, pleasant breeze ever since Aziraphale granted them sanctuary—even though the irritating dear won’t tell Donna exactly what that _means_. “Granddad!” she yelps, smiling even as part of her panics. “What are you doing downstairs?”

Wilf looks up from the table he’s seated at, a book open in front of him and a cup of tea nearby. The cane he was using to hobble about with before even that became too much is leaning against the table. “Donna! Glad you’re back, sweetheart. Besides, I feel a bit more like my old self today. Couldn’t stomach the idea of just lazing about in bed any longer.”

Donna leaves the others behind, rushes over, and hugs him. “Good.” She swallows and drops a kiss onto his head. “Glad to hear it. You had me worried.”

“Sorry.” He lowers his voice, still smiling. “An’ I know you did something, or had _them_ do something for me, but I’m not minding it. I wasn’t ready to off and leave you yet.”

“I’m not admitting to anything,” Donna replies, quickly wiping at her eyes. “Oh, yeah. Martha, Mickey, this is my granddad, Wilfred Mott.”

“Call me Wilf,” Granddad says, trying to slowly stand up from the table until Donna frowns and firmly pushes on his shoulders so he’ll stay put. “Donna!”

“Just because you’re feeling like being up and about doesn’t mean you get to act like you’re already perfectly fine! Sit down. They’ve got working legs; they can come meet you.”

Granddad chuckles. “Oh, I see how it is. Nice to meet you, then,” he says, accepting the hand that Mickey holds out. “Donna says you lot hung about with the Doctor, too,” he adds when Martha does the same. She’s also giving him a very familiar physician’s eye that almost makes Donna bristle. They’ve had quite enough of that in the last few years, thanks.

“We did, yeah,” Mickey says. “Martha managed the madness longer than I could, but it was worth it, else I’d never have met her.”

Then Granddad’s eyes land on Jack. “Oh, now you, I’ve _definitely_ seen before. The old war boring enough that you decided to skip forward seventy-five years, lad?”

Jack laughs and clasps Granddad’s hand with both of his, a warm, lingering clasp that is almost—but not quite—flirting. “Nah, I have an entirely different problem. Nice to see you again, Wilf! You look good!”

“Granddad!” Donna glares at him. “You didn’t tell me you knew Jack!”

“Jack Harkness isn’t that uncommon a name, sweetheart,” Granddad defends himself. “How was I supposed to know it was the same man?”

“How’d you meet?” Martha asks, though she’s giving Jack a look that is all but screaming at him to bloody well behave himself.

“Well, I was RAF—officially, this time, no choice about it. Torchwood orders,” Jack explains. “Wilf here was British Army Airborne…Sixth Division, right?”

Granddad looks surprised. “Yeah. Good memory, there.” He grins up at Donna. “He wouldn’t stop scandalizing everyone around him because he wouldn’t knock it off with the flirting. Even tried it on me, but I told him I was bloody well married to your Gran already, and he could go try that nonsense somewhere else.”

Donna sighs. “Jack.”

“What? I know how to take no for an answer!”

“Blimey,” Mickey says as he looks around the shop. “This isn’t a bookshop, this is a bloody library!”

“Yeah, that’s—definitely, yes, keep that in mind,” Crowley says, heading towards the back. “Library. Definitely a library.”

“Aziraphale _really_ loves his books,” Donna explains. “Unless it’s the children’s editions, he’s not selling. He’s even got a scroll here from Pompeii, because he was there. Not the same day I was, though.”

“When were you in Pompeii?” Martha asks, though her eyes widen as she notes some of the names on the book spines, and that isn’t even taking into account how pristine they all are.

“Oh, volcano day,” Donna responds, and then decides to busy herself by making off with Granddad’s empty teacup. “I’ll be back with more as soon as the kettle heats up.”

Granddad nods and smiles. He knows exactly how she feels about that Pompeii business. “Take your time, sweetheart. How’d the meet an’ greet go, then?”

Donna listens from the back room as the others discuss it while going through the near-automatic process of putting together the tea. Granddad laughs aloud at the idea of Crowley taking a cricket bat to a Weeping Angel. Donna is thinking that maybe carrying about a cricket bat about until everything settles down is a good idea.

She looks up when she hears footsteps on the stairs, where Crowley is descending, Aziraphale just behind him. “Sorry, I was upstairs researching from one of my more private tomes, and lost track of time,” Aziraphale apologizes. Donna shrugs and holds up the kettle. Aziraphale smiles in gratitude. “Yes, that would be lovely, thank you.”

“Do you still have that photograph of those angel constructs on your mobile?” Crowley asks, leaning against the counter as she sorts tea, gives up on finding any milk, and just puts the sugar bowl onto the tray.

“Yeah. Why?”

“Aziraphale was researching the constructs in particular. Imagery is so stupidly important sometimes,” Crowley says. “Delete it. If you sent it to anyone else, they need to do the same.”

“Wait. They could emerge from my bloody _mobile?_” Donna asks in disbelief.

“Circumstances seem to vary, to be honest,” Aziraphale says, and politely gestures to take the tea tray out instead of letting Donna do it. “My shop, my guests, dear,” he says gently. Donna grants him that and lays off. “It does not always happen, and that protective circle they were trapped behind when you took the photograph would certainly be keeping them at bay…but that circle won’t last forever.”

“Got it.” Donna pulls out her mobile and opens up the file structure instead of the photo app, deleting the file directly, and everything associated with it. “Done. Oi, Jack!” she calls as she steps back out into the shop proper. Israfil is sitting next to Granddad at the table, gripping his hand as he studies Wilf with eyes that are glowing just a bit. He still hasn’t bothered to put his pupils back to human-shaped.

Jack raises both eyebrows and promptly deletes the photograph from his mobile. “I’ve never seen them pull that, but hey, first time for everything.”

“What are you doing?” Martha asks, staring at Israfil in fascination. “I met quite a number of healers while traveling with the Doctor, but I’ve never seen anyone do a physical diagnostic that way before, even when it was the empathic lot.”

“It’s physical, metaphysical, spiritual, _and_ mental,” Israfil replies, blinking a few times after he releases Granddad’s hand. “I doubt you’ll need that cane by the end of next week,” he tells Granddad, whose entire expression lights up.

Aziraphale, meanwhile, puts the tea tray down on the table rather abruptly and stares at Jack. “Young man, why on _earth_ is your lifeline trying to resemble braille text?”

“More like Morse code, angel,” Crowley counters. “Still, s’good question.”

Jack takes a look around the room before he answers. “I don’t usually explain it in front of strangers, but since you can already see it…”

Aziraphale raises both eyebrows before holding out his hand to Jack. “Aziraphale, Principality, Guardian of the Eastern Gate. A pleasure.”

Jack grins and shakes Aziraphale’s hand. “Captain Jack Harkness, head of Torchwood Three, former RAF, and I _love_ the waistcoat. It’s a thing.”

Aziraphale blushes, which Donna finds adorable. Crowley looks as if he’s considering literal bloody murder. “Thank you. It’s rare to find anyone who appreciates the classics.”

“Ssstop that,” Crowley hisses.

Aziraphale turns and gives him a smug look. “Crowley! Are you jealous?”

“He smells like a brothel. Should I be?” Crowley counters, crossing his arms and glaring back.

“I thought that was a cologne—oh, pheromones, I see,” Aziraphale says in apparent realization. “How very interesting. Also, Crowley, don’t be ridiculous. He’s far too young for me, anyway.”

“Wow. I really don’t hear that one often,” Jack comments. “Anyway, there was sort of an incident with someone who’d pulled forth too much of time at once, and…I really don’t know how to explain it all, but essentially, I can’t die. No, more specifically, I can die, but I don’t stay dead. Ever. I’ve been at this for two thousand years now. I die, see nothing but blackness, wake up again, and it’s back to business as usual. I’m still aging, but it’s really, really slow.”

Donna takes in the expression on Jack’s face. “Go ahead and ask them, dingbat. What can it hurt?”

“Hey, I really, really don’t like getting my hopes up. Not for that, and also, Ianto would _hunt me down_ if I died right now,” Jack responds, but then he squares his shoulders. “I’ve been told that what went wrong, me not dying, can’t be fixed, but the Doctor said the same thing about Donna, and she’s fine. Can you help me fix this?”

“Can’t stay dead. Oh, you must be driving Azrael absolutely mental,” Israfil murmurs.

“Who?”

“Azrael. Death,” Crowley adds in annoyance when no one reacts to their name.

“Death’s a real person?” Mickey asks, though Martha seems offended by the question.

“Yes, real entity, person, whatever, and they’re very particular,” Crowley says. Donna has the feeling that he’s being belligerent on purpose, but then, he’s never once tried to _make_ anyone like him. He always seems sort of offended by the idea. “That blackness you see when you die? That’s Azrael, trying to do their job, and probably frustrated out of their mind every time you drop down into their range and can’t be moved along properly.” Crowley scowls at Jack. “Atheist?”

“Kinda hard not to be when you literally die and there’s nothing waiting for you,” Jack replies.

“Yes, there is, you just can’t stay dead long enough for it.” Crowley rolls his eyes. “Give me a good agnostic _any_ bloody day. At least they’re open-minded.”

“Thanks, sunshine,” Donna says. Crowley glances at her, and if his smile is a bit smug, well…hers might be, too.

Jack blatantly dodges the theology. “That doesn’t really answer my question, though.”

Israfil lifts both hands, palms outward, in a vague shrug. “We can’t fix it because there is nothing wrong with you. Aside from you driving Azrael mental, that is, but it’s not _wrong_.”

Jack all but freezes in place. “I was told it was. Very specifically, in fact. That I was a fixed point in time.”

“I’m starting to get the feeling that you lot knew the Doctor when he was a complete wanker,” Crowley surmises. “Look. Troy was supposed to fall. I heard that woman say it herself; it was a fixed point in time, something that had to happen. If Troy was one of these fixed points, and therefore correct, then how the fuck would you be the opposite?”

“No idea—dammit. He lied.” Jack abruptly sits down in a plush chair that’s fronting one of Aziraphale’s bookcases. “It wasn’t about that at all. It was him, and she loves him, so she was trying to help.” He leans over and buries his face in his hands. “Donna, I’ll help you slap him.”

“The her is the TARDIS. Sentient time-traveling spaceship,” Martha supplies.

“Yeah, we got the summary. I already had the sentient part down. Donna had a memory in her head of that rather _massive_ sentient consciousness screaming when someone tried to destroy it,” Crowley drawls. “My opinion stands: wank-er.”

“Or…maybe it’s something else.” Israfil looks at Crowley. “Let’s assume, for a moment, that for whatever reason, that shared appearance is more than skin-deep. Let’s say this Doctor fellow is a lot like you.”

Crowley looks _exceptionally_ offended. “Fuck you, too.”

“Just go with it a moment,” Israfil retorts in exasperation. “It’s not a wrongness in Jack that the Doctor would have been running from. It was shame.”

“Israfil. Shut. Up.”

Israfil ignores him. “I’m guessing that, during a time when the Doctor felt that you, Mister Distraction, was his responsibility, something went wrong. Specifically, this not-dying incident went wrong, and it was something the Doctor not only couldn’t fix, he absolutely blamed himself for.”

Jack lifts his head enough so that his eyes are showing, his fingers still resting over his face. “Yeah. That sounds like him.”

“Guilt complex larger than the bloody moon,” Martha agrees. “Donna?”

Donna glances at Granddad, who is already nodding. “I don’t have the Doctor’s memories, and thank God for that, but the perspective is still there,” Donna says. “Yeah. Definitely guilt. I’d go with something more like Jupiter, though. Moon’s too small.”

“Let me guess,” Mickey says to Israfil. “You’re the nice twin.”

Israfil lets out a snort of laughter. “No, I’m the polite twin.”

Crowley glares at his brother. “Ssseriousssly. Fuck. You.”

Donna feels like the air in the room lightens, which is a load off her shoulders. She barely knows Mickey Smith, but she likes him already if he knows how to break up _that_ sort of tension. “Don’t worry, sunshine. I’m sure that six thousand years of you being a complete prick will keep anyone from ever believing you’ve got a nice bone in your body for at least a century or three.”

Donna nearly leaps back from the table when Crowley, Jack, Aziraphale, and Israfil are all suddenly on their feet, wide-eyed and alert. “What the hell is that?” Israfil asks.

“I’m not sure, but there is quite a lot of it,” Aziraphale answers.

Jack nods. “Someone is definitely unhappy.”

“That isn’t unhappiness. That’s terror, you idiots,” Crowley says, and runs for the door before anyone else can move.

“Oh, God, they’re all worse than the Doctor,” Mickey grouses, standing up while Martha grabs the backpack they’ve been carrying about. “Come on, then. Let’s probably go have to save them.”

“Donna,” Granddad says, and that’s when Donna realizes she’s on her feet, too. Those old habits aren’t that old, not for her.

“You stay put,” Donna says, taking a second to squeeze his hand. “You’re not so good at ducking right now, you know.”

“I don’t like seeing you run off into danger, not after…”

Donna gives him a frustrated look. “Granddad, I was usually the one pulling the Doctor back out of it. I’ll be fine!” she promises, and runs after the others.

She promptly collides with Mickey just after making it through the bookshop’s doors. The others are also standing in front of the shop, staring around them. “What is—oh,” Donna whispers.

Everyone around them is frozen in place.

Aziraphale gives Crowley a sharp look. “Did you stop time again?”

“No. Time isn’t frozen. They are,” Crowley says of the people. “And they’re scared out of their minds.”

Donna looks over at the nearest woman, a brunette in a rather nice dress that doesn’t really match the hipster vibe of Soho. She can’t move, but her eyes are rolling, pupils blown wide with panic.

Israfil raises his hand and snaps his fingers. Nothing changes. “That’s not good.”

“What? Why?” Martha asks, staring around her in horror. “What’s causing this?”

“We did mention the very powerful entities who are pissed off, right?” Crowley reminds her snidely. Then he looks at the woman Donna is staring at and snaps his fingers. Donna feels the pressure of it, another mild psychic wave, but this time it works—only on the brunette.

“Oh, my God!” the woman shouts as she stumbles forward to land on her bare knees. “What’s going on?”

“The idea is to run away now,” Israfil orders her, pointing east. “Go!”

Crowley shakes his head, baring his teeth. “It only works on one person at a time. That’s so fucking inconvenient.”

“Right, then. To plan.” Aziraphale looks far grimmer than Donna has ever seen. “There are three of us and four of you. Mickey and Martha, please stay together, because one of you might panic if separated, and follow along behind me. Donna, stay with Crowley, as you know how to tolerate him. Captain Harkness, follow Israfil. We’re going to unfreeze these people, one at a time. You lot are going to direct them to…”

“Mayfair,” Crowley says. “And not because I hate Mayfair. It just feels safer in that direction.”

Aziraphale gives him a firm nod. “Right. Everyone?” Then he spins on his heel and stalks west down Old Compton, his coat flying out behind him. Martha and Mickey follow, stopping every few seconds to direct the newly unfrozen pedestrian traffic. Israfil goes south down Greek Street with Jack just behind him.

Donna follows Crowley east along Old Compton. This is where volume and bossiness always served her well. She doesn’t wait for gibbering or terror. She simply yells at everyone Crowley unfreezes to move their arses in the direction of Mayfair, _right bleeding now_!

“There are probably going to be odd questions about the snapping and the power bit,” Donna says when they’re almost back where they started from a half-hour ago. She glances at her watch; it’s nearly four-thirty.

“Yeah, don’t care,” Crowley says, unfreezing first a stroller with a baby in it, then the man who was pushing it along. “Stop staring at me and fucking run!” Crowley shouts at him. “You’ve got a baby to save, idiot!”

Donna’s next shout emerges properly, but it’s followed by a plume of mist, like she just walked into a freezer. The sounds of Jack, Martha, and Mickey are suddenly distant, far away things. “Crowley.”

Crowley glances over his shoulder at her, sees the mist she’s breathing into the air, and swears. “Back to the bookshop. Right now. Go!”

“But these people—”

“Are safer than we are right now!” Crowley retorts, shoving her along when she’s too slow to start moving. “Run!”

Donna does, her heart beginning to pound in her chest from both the adrenaline and the fact that she is _really_ not in the right sort of condition for this anymore. She knows her feet in her flat shoes are slamming down on the blacktop, but it doesn’t feel like she’s getting anywhere. “It’s like the shop’s just getting further away!”

“It’s a bloody illusion!” Crowley shouts. Now he sounds distant, too. The sound of fabric rustling in the breeze, like giant flags or sheets drying on the clothesline, is loud in Donna’s ears. “Keep fucking running!”

It’s like reality snaps back into place. One moment she’s far away; the next moment, her hand is grasping at the bookshop’s door before she realizes she’s made it. She yanks the door open, ready to get them both inside—all of them, hopefully—when she realizes Crowley isn’t next to her.

“What the hell are you _doing_?” Donna yells, scared and furious.

Crowley is standing on the opposite side of the intersection, right near the old theatre, but he’s facing away from her. Something down the street made of black cloth is billowing in the breeze. “Go inside, idiot!” Crowley yells back.

“Not without you, sunshine!”

Then the black fabric parts like a curtain. Donna can see the form of something humanoid lurking within all of those long fingers of reaching cloth. She has eyes that are black voids of nothing, the skin of a corpse, and a grin that is needle-sharp teeth without any hint that she ever had lips. The sight of her makes Donna’s blood feel like ice, her thoughts sluggish. She can’t remember ever being this terrified of anything, even when probably-going-to-die was definitely on the menu.

“Hello, Tenebris,” Crowley says, and Donna can hear the ragged edge in his voice. Maybe the Doctor could be confident when confronted with something like _that_, but the Doctor was also mad as a bloody hatter half the time.

“Hello, Crowley.” It isn’t sound; it’s a voice that crawls into her brain like skittering bloody spiders with frozen feet.

Then those questing fingers of blackness lash out. Fabric and shadow slice through Crowley like an ax. Donna screams when he falls backwards, sprawled out in the intersection. The force of the blow is so strong that drops of blood land on her face.

_Think, just keep thinking_, the part of her that is still more Time Lord than human reminds her. Donna swallows, aware that Aziraphale and Israfil are racing back, but it won’t matter. They’ve discussed with her what it takes to cause their bodies to discorporate, even if it’s just a “temporary inconvenience.”

That’s fatal. That is beyond fatal. Anyone human would already be dead.

Crowley manages to tilt his head back enough so that he can glare at her. She can read his thoughts, plain as day: _I told you to go inside!_

Donna shakes her head. _Not without you._

“CROWLEY!” Aziraphale shouts. He doesn’t sound horrified, not yet. He’s enraged.

_Guardian of the Eastern Gate_, Donna thinks distantly. _Should have a sword, you._

“ZAAZENACH!” Israfil roars. “DON’T YOU FUCKING DARE!”

Donna watches as Crowley weakly digs into his jacket and pulls out his mobile, followed by his wallet. He knows what’s coming, and he’s planning for it the only way he can.

Tenebris, Zaazenach, whatever the hell her name is, glances up long enough to give Israfil a sweet smile that has far too many bloody teeth to be kind. “Thank you for that permission, Healer.” Again with the whispery spider-crawl feeling! “Just for that, I _will_ hurt him.”

Then Tenebris’s shadows and billowing black cloth fold over Crowley, like she’s just draped herself over his body. Donna hears Crowley shout in pain—or maybe just anger—as Tenebris wraps him like a shroud.

Then Tenebris pulls him down, down through the blacktop and beneath the earth until they’re completely gone. The only thing that remains are few sparks of gold and red-tinged embers that drift away on the wind.

Donna abruptly drops down onto the ground, gasping when the shock of it finally hits. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my _God_,” she whispers, but she can’t hear it over Israfil’s agonized screaming.


	9. Inside the Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley is going to spend a week baking himself in the sun after this shit is done and over with.

Crowley wakes up slowly, which is probably for the best. He still feels like he was dragged through several dozen hornet’s nests, and he didn’t enjoy that when it happened on Earth. Can’t remember why; he probably offended someone.

The demonic equivalent is so much worse.

He’s hanging in place, his toes resting on the floor. The downside to being in a body that has no need for oxygen whatsoever is that they can leave him hanging in chains for a century or two with his arms stretched wide, just high enough to put terrible pressure on his chest, and it doesn’t matter. He can’t bloody die from it because he can’t die at all.

Well, unless Tenebris decides to get really creative and destroy his soul.

Oh, he didn’t need to think about that. She’s malicious enough to do it just because she’d think it was amusing.

Then again, this is such a classic for Hell that it’s almost funny. Chain someone up, let them to suffer in the void, torture them a bit, leave them hanging long enough to forget their own name—bloody typical.

Crowley lifts his head just enough to turn his head to look over his shoulder. She didn’t bother to draw out and pin his wings. That’s not nearly as much of a relief as it should be.

He hears the rustle of fabric and faces forward, watching Tenebris emerge from the darkness surrounding him. “I am always so impatient after I’ve discorporated someone,” she says. “It takes time for them to wake up, and I have nothing to do but wait.”

“Buy a mobile and play Candy Crush,” Crowley suggests. “You’ll be less bored. Possibly out a few grand if you get addicted, though.”

She walks over and grips his chin. They’re both made of the same stuff on this plane of existence, so it doesn’t matter that she has no body. She can still touch him…and probably hurt him a lot. “I have no need of fleeting mortal devices.” She smiles. “At this moment, I have you.”

Crowley glances down at the cuffs at his wrists, below his elbow, on his upper arm, and at his shoulders. They’re made from hell-forged iron, a familiar burn against his skin that can’t be broken—at least, not here. The burn is a bit worse now that he isn’t a demon anymore, but it’s not hellfire. The cuffs are linked to chains, and those are anchored into the rock wall to either side.

His legs are hanging free, but he can’t touch the floor. For anyone else, it wouldn’t be much leverage. For him, it’s plenty. He could twist up right now—

No. Wait.

Crowley stares into Tenebris’s eyes, something that might be an intelligent plan forming in his head. That might qualify as a literal miracle in and of itself. “Y’know, you could just send a card or a letter to tell me what you want. I mean, I do know how to write.”

Tenebris only continues to smile. Waste of good sarcasm. “You are going to help strengthen the one you so unjustly imprisoned.”

Crowley leans back in offence. “The hell I will.”

“I don’t recall granting you a choice.” Tenebris releases his face. “Pain creates such power, does it not?”

“To be honest, that was never really my thing.”

“Crowley. Demon. Fallen archangel. Seventh of the First.” Tenebris turns around and smiles. “So much power, and yet you do so little with it.”

Crowley wants to counter that he literally froze time right in the midst of the Apocalypse trying to happen, taking himself and two other people off to another plane of existence, but that would probably just encourage her. “So what?”

Tenebris raises her hand. “So, this,” she replies, and breathes hints of darkness through the air at him.

Crowley tries to escape it, but there is no give in these fucking chains. The darkness lands on his skin, sinks through his clothing, and settles into place. He gasps and tries to curl up on himself, but he can’t get away.

It isn’t painful. It’s just _cold_.

“Wh’the _fuck_, woman?” Crowley gasps, and then glances up to look at the bare skin of his hand.

His heart sinks like a stone. He knows that writing. It was Celestial once, but even in those early days, before Gehenna became Hell, the corruption had already begun. The holy strength of it was fading, but not yet gone.

Crowley once used what strength remained in the language he could remember to seal Samael into the earth. He’d written it onto Samael’s skin, on the walls around him, carved it into the massive metal ceiling to his prison, and even that hadn’t been enough.

Everywhere he could reach. He’d written those binding words all over that insignificant little planetoid in its hidden orbit within the arms of a black hole. Not that it had been enough. It hadn’t kept that bastard imprisoned forever.

“The same language you used upon Samael will keep you from departing,” Tenebris says, pleased. “Do you like it? My love thought it was ironic to imprison you the same way he himself was imprisoned.”

Crowley gives her a disgusted look. “You love that utter prick? You’ve got no taste at all.”

Tenebris is unbothered by his opinion. “To each their own, I believe the mortals say. You are powerful, even if you do not use your strength. My love is weak from his long years beneath the earth. It is only fair that you give that strength back to him. The best way to steal another’s strength, I’ve always found, is by torment. Appropriate for Hell, is it not?”

Crowley yawns. “Same old, same old.”

Tenebris smiles, which…doesn’t help. At all. “You will see. For now, I have to go repair the damage I did to the magical seal of the physical plane by bringing you here.”

“How the fuck did you do that, anyway?”

“Oh. It is my magic that encircles the Earth. The only difficulty was caused by my…passenger.” Tenebris grants him a wave so sweet it is literally evil before sauntering back into the shadows. A moment later, a distant door slams shut.

Crowley waits until he’s certain she’s gone before letting his head slump. Now he has to plan, and he probably doesn’t have much time to do it.

It isn’t just planning, though. It’s setting the patterns.

Hell takes from you. It strips you bare and leaves you with nothing. Unfortunately, Crowley is intimately familiar with what that is like.

It’s why he and Aziraphale figured out how to deal with it millennia ago, because staring at his best friend, knowing Aziraphale was important and unable to remember why? Once was enough for that, thanks. It’d taken weeks to regain what he’d lost the first time Hell had kept him Downstairs for an extended bit of extracurricular team-building.

Ugh. Why did he have to go and invent buzzwords?

Crowley looks at the marks on his skin, which look like they’ve been drawn on with charcoal. Was that what he’d used that first time? There was probably enough of it in Gehenna, but he doesn’t remember. It’s cold, unpleasant on his skin, like being weighed down in ice, but Tenebris has already fucked up.

She didn’t change the markings. Not any of them.

He wrote these all over a planetoid to entrap a demon. Crowley isn’t a demon anymore. The only things holding him back right now are eight hell-forged shackles and the fierce desire to fuck over Samael’s entire existence.

Crowley glances to his right, draws on the physical strength he usually doesn’t bother with, and jerks against the chains. A human would say that nothing at all happened, that nothing changed. Crowley, however, can feel that the anchors in the stone gave way. It was maybe a micrometer, but it was movement.

That’s what makes him certain that he isn’t just being ridiculous. He really does have a plan, one that will work. It’ll take a while, but he’s immortal. He has all the time in the world.

He makes the chains part of the patterns he’s setting in his head. His subconscious is going to need to do the work of remembering everything he’s meant to be doing, because his consciousness is going to be busy with whatever Tenebris has in mind. Those patterns are going to save his arse, get him out of here…and they’re going to take Tenebris out of Samael’s stupid fucking game.

Crowley is really fond of that last part.

* * * *

“But I thought hell was blocked off!” Adam says as they appear in the bookshop. “How did she do that if it’s blocked?”

Israfil resists the urge to sigh. His head hurts. His eyes feel raw. “It has to be her creation in the first place. That would allow Tenebris to control and manipulate it.”

“That makes sense,” Israfil hears Jack say, and then there is a warm hand on his shoulder. “You all right?”

“Not really.”

Israfil has never seen Zaherael discorporate before. He had a vague awareness that it occurred sometimes, back when he still resided as secreted-away bits of himself within Zaherael’s heart. What happened in Purgatory doesn’t really count as discorporation, and Zaherael came through the War in Heaven with almost no physical injuries to speak of until the very end.

“Look, Donna explained about how this is temporary.” Jack’s grip on Israfil’s shoulder tightens. Israfil can feel the intent behind the touch; comfort, not any hint of flirting to be found. “The hardest part is getting him back. Right?”

“Yes.” Israfil turns around and lets Jack give what he’s willingly offering. He’ll be the very first to admit that he really needs the hug right now. “We just don’t know how.”

“We’ll figure it out.” Then Jack huffs out a laugh. “Geeze, you’re even as pointy as the Doctor. It’s like hugging joints and bones.”

Israfil laughs despite his mood. “Thanks a lot.” He feels a bit better when he steps back, and it wasn’t just the hug. Jack Harkness isn’t just modified to emit some _very_ tempting pheromones. He’s also psychic on a level most modern humans haven’t figured out, even if it’s a small gift. What makes it work for Jack is that he’s been trained to use it properly. “Sorry, I’m being rude. Captain Jack Harkness, this is Adam Young. Adam, meet Jack.”

Adam smiles at Jack and waves. “Hi. Sorry this is a crappy way to meet.”

“You said it, kiddo. Come on. I’ll introduce you to the others,” Jack says.

“Yeah, just a sec. I need to ask him something first,” Adam replies, and Jack nods.

“Suit yourself.”

“What is it, Adam?” Israfil asks.

“The Them,” Adam says, staring up at Israfil. “Newt and Anathema, and my parents. The Them will probably warn Newt and Anathema, but they’ll forget all about this when time resets itself again at noon tomorrow!”

Israfil deliberately takes a breath, clearing his head and senses both. “No. We’re going to fix this problem before time resets again.”

Adam frowns. “How do you know that?”

“I just…” Israfil hesitates. He has a bit of precognition; it comes with being a Healer. Sometimes he needs to know what must be done before the problem presents itself. “I just do, Adam. I really do believe that we'll succeed.”

Adam hugs him around the waist again. “Okay. I’m really glad to hear that, because Mum and Dad are going to be _so_ cheesed off ’bout all this.” Then he wanders off to follow Jack into the back room, looking a bit brighter, more assured, than he had ten minutes ago.

Israfil sinks down at the table where Crowley left his laptop after everyone decided to hole up in the bookshop, away from the risk of those damned constructs, the Weeping Angels. Accurate, terrible, annoying name for them.

He looks down when he realizes he’s tapping his fingers on the table, muttering words to a song he heard on the Pandora app a few days ago. He can’t remember the artist or title, so he opens the laptop and does a quick search of the lyrics he’s recalling. It’s something to do, something that isn’t staring blankly at the stacks in Aziraphale’s bookshop and trying not to panic.

“Disturbed, song title ‘Inside the Fire.’” Israfil raises an eyebrow. That had _not_ been one of his favorites.

_“Oh Devon_

_Won’t go to Heaven_

_She’s just another lost soul, about to be mine again_

_Leave her_

_We will receive her_

_It is beyond your control_

_Will you ever meet again._

_Devon, one of eleven—”_

Israfil stares at the screen. “One of eleven,” he whispers. “Zaherael, you mad bastard.”

“_Devon, one of eleven_

_Who had been rendered unwhole_

_As a little child,_

_She was taken_

_And then forsaken_

_You will remember it all_

_Let it blow your mind again._

_Devon lies beyond this portal._

_Take the word of one immortal._”

Israfil scrubs his hands dry on his denims and then drags over a notebook. He’s learning to type (slow process), and still has better success if he’s writing out his thoughts. Then he needs the computer again anyway, because he doesn’t know if Devon is a name or a place or—

Of course. It would be both. He clicks the name’s etymology. “Fawn,” he mutters, writing it down. Zaazenach had been one of the eleven angels assigned to guard the marked twelve hours, the light of Earth’s day. The only hour they did not mark was dusk, the time between worlds. Israfil can’t remember if a fawn has an association with the number six, and the internet is no help at all, but that probably doesn’t matter. It’s only there to tell Israfil _who_.

“_About to be mine again_.” Israfil taps his pen against the paper. “Oh, you’ve got a plan, Brother. You must.” He glances at the song’s beginning again. “_We will receive her_. Okay, that…that makes no sense at all, and I don’t like the part where you’re telling me it’s beyond my control. I hate interpreting poetry. Always have,” he growls under his breath. At least “_Devon lies beyond this portal. Take the word of one immortal_” is exceptionally obvious…and also very sarcastic.

“_You will remember it all._” Israfil narrows his eyes. “Oh. Oh, no—Zaherael, that’s…okay, it’s efficient, but no! That’s a bloody stupid idea, you complete fucking wanker!”

Aziraphale must have heard him. He rushes out of the back room, brow furrowed with worry that will not fade. “If you’re irritated with Crowley, that means you found something.”

Israfil realizes there are stupid tears running down his face. “He’s being a shit.”

Aziraphale studies the notes Israfil wrote down before he starts reading the song lyrics directly from the laptop screen. “I’ve never heard of these musicians. Are they any good?”

“It varies,” Israfil says, because he’s heard two of their songs, and it was a fifty-fifty split in regards to liking and disliking them. “Pretty sure it’s not to your taste, though.”

“I trust your statement on that matter more than I trust Crowley’s.” Aziraphale glances over at him. “Israfil…you’re writing.”

“What?” Israfil glances down to discover that he just finished doing exactly that. It’s not his handwriting, either. He’d recognize that disaster-scrawl anywhere.

_Pay attention_ is written first, underlined several times. That’s followed by _Portal_, “_I Will Not Bow_” and _Google it, idiot_.

Israfil puts down the pen long enough to type the quoted words in the search bar. “Zaherael is using this as revenge.”

“Well, you did start it,” Aziraphale says lightly. “For a just purpose, though.”

“Yeah—oh,” Israfil says as the first results give him a song by a band called Breaking Benjamin. “Oh, fuck.”

“_Fall_

_Now the dark begins to rise_

_Save your breath; it’s far from over_

_Leave the lost and dead behind_

_Now’s your chance to run for cover_

_I don’t wanna change the world_

_I just wanna leave it colder_

_Light the fuse and burn it up_

_Take the path that leads to nowhere_

_All is lost again_

_But I’m not giving in._

_I will not bow_

_I will not break_

_I will shut the world away_

_I will not fall_

_I will not fade_

_I will take your breath away_.”

Aziraphale has turned a wretched pale color. “Oh, Crowley.”

“It’s a vow and he means it,” Israfil insists, glaring at Aziraphale. “Don’t worry about that right now. The most important sentence is right there.” He taps “_Take the path that leads to nowhere_” with the capped end of the pen for emphasis.

“_Light the fuse and burn it up. Take the path that leads to nowhere_,” Aziraphale repeats, and then his eyes widen. “Oh, good Lord. I don’t know if I can do that. I mean, that’s normally something one does with demons, not angels!”

“We’re the same bloody species!” Israfil reminds him in frustration.

“I know.” Aziraphale lifts his chin and begins pacing along the shelves, front of the store and back again, for several minutes.

“All right. Yes, it’s a potential. We have two problems, though. That block encircling the Earth will make it _exceptionally_ difficult to perform a successful Summoning. To override that difficulty, we must know where he is. Without coordinates, very specific ones…it won’t matter that I have his name. I need to know exactly where he is in every sense of the word.”

“Time, location, and dimension.” Israfil rubs at his forehead and looks at the lyrics again. “_Save your breath, it’s far from over_” and “_I will take your breath away._” Those lyrics, combined with “_You will remember it all_” make the whole of it rather obvious.

Israfil glances down at his hand again, which is idly twirling the pen through his fingers. It’s like someone else is playing with the muscles and joints of his hand, but it’s not exactly a possession. More like a nudge. This one, at least, is easy enough to understand.

“Aziraphale. I need a scroll that is potentially infinite, and a very good quill that won’t run out of ink.”

Aziraphale nods. “That’s a bit harder for me to manage here than it is Upstairs, but I believe I can make it work.”

“Good.” Israfil stands up, trying to ignore the fact that this corporation’s stupid gut is churning with nerves. “Let’s go tell the others.”

* * * *

“You want to literally Summon Crowley back.” Martha gives Israfil a look of complete disbelief. “Like, an actual ritual Summoning.”

“I’ve seen weirder,” Jack offers. Israfil has a feeling that the man’s definition of weird has a very wide scope.

Adam is the one to take offence to Martha’s comment, but Israfil can’t say he blames the boy. “It’s not _that_ weird. I’ve been on another plane of existence just because Crowley decided to call time-out on the stupid Apocalypse! You’ve time-traveled with an actual alien—an’ I am so jealous by the way—but _this_ is supposed to be ridiculous?”

“What does it actually involve? Candles and sacrifice?” Mickey asks. Israfil thinks he might be serious, and it really makes him wonder what humans on this planet have been doing for six millennia.

“Oh, candles are optional. It’s the sigils. More accurately for your frame of reference, it’s the _mathematics_,” Aziraphale explains. His hands are clasped together to keep from fidgeting or fluttering. “A Summoning isn’t about sacrifice…well, usually it’s not. What we’re talking about right here is…well…”

Jack suddenly sits up straighter in his chair. “Spatial mathematics. You’re building a portal. A _teleportation_ system.”

“With chalk,” Martha adds, still unimpressed.

Jack rolls his eyes. “It doesn’t actually matter what you make it with! You could draw it all in with a crayon, and as long as you’ve got the math right, you’re going to make a portal!”

“How?” Martha asks, all but throwing up her hands in frustration.

“Math is literally the language of the universe. It’s what ties everything together,” Jack answers, saving Israfil from trying to explain it in human terms—which is useful, because he really doesn’t know how. “It’s universal and consistent as long as you ignore the flow of time, because time isn’t a constant.”

Donna is the one to grab and heft Jack’s left wrist into the air, where he wears a complicated device attached to a wide leather strap. “This vortex manipulator thing might be crude, but it only needs two things to function: a power source, and all of the spatial mathematics that map out time and space by record, with predictable equations based on the movement and expansion of the universe!”

Jack grins at Donna. “It’s hot when you do that.”

“Don’t start. You’re just a bleedin’ tease,” Donna shoots back, smirking.

Aziraphale gives Adam a stern look. “No portals without proper instruction first.”

Adam holds up both hands in wide-eyed denial. “I don’t actually wanna end up stuck somewhere, y’know. No portals is an easy promise. Besides, what happens if you miss?”

“It gets messy,” Jack responds at once, and then belatedly realizes he probably shouldn’t have mentioned that in front of a child.

“Only if you’re a physical being. If you’re not corporeal, it’s less a mess and more just inconvenient as you attempt to get yourself back on track again,” Aziraphale says. “And yes, I am, unfortunately, speaking from experience.”

“He discorporated himself by accident on the day the world was supposed to end,” Adam tells the others smugly. “It’s really funny.”

“It is not!” Aziraphale protests. “It was very inconvenient!”

“You had to share a body with Mrs. Shadwell!”

“And she was polite enough to offer, thank you!”

Mickey looks both resigned and bewildered. “That…must have been awkward.”

“Not at all,” Aziraphale replies. “She is quite lovely. If you linger long enough, I can ring her to come up for a visit with her husband—well, maybe not her husband. He’s an odd one.”

“You guys keep referencing the world ending. What day was that?” Jack asks curiously, but Israfil catches a glimpse of pre-existing awareness in his eyes.

“Twenty-fourth August, last year,” Aziraphale says. “Why?”

“Huh.” Jack raises an eyebrow. “I seem to remember a news report and a few aerial photos from that day, though the archives are conspicuously absent. Something about the M25 being on _fire_.”

“Oh, it was. It was a rather brutal fire, too.” Aziraphale sighs and shakes his head. “Crowley _drove_ through it.”

Adam grins. “I fixed it later that day.”

Mickey sighs and slumps back in his seat. “Nope, don’t wanna know. I learned not to ask these sorts of questions years ago.”

“Vortex manipulator.” Israfil frowns at the leather cuff as a thought occurs to him. “That still has a working power source, yes?”

Jack nods. “Sure. It doesn’t travel through time anymore, but the power source was repaired years ago. Why?”

“Differing sources of energy.” Donna snaps her fingers and grins in delight. “Energy!”

“What’re you going on about, sweetheart?” Wilf asks.

“Look, when the extra-dimensional lot tried to boost my old mobile to call Dumbo, the mobile melted. Incompatible sources of energy. But take another mobile, use the power source from Jack’s vortex manipulator, boost the signal…”

“We’d be able to call the Doctor!” Martha finally looks less pessimistic about everything. “That’s grand thinking, Donna!”

“Look, I’m glad you’re going to be able to call this Doctor person, but I can’t rely on them to save my brother. Wrong plane of existence, and everything I’ve heard tells me the Doctor doesn’t deal with those. They stick with the physical plane, which is…probably for the best.” Israfil isn’t ashamed of the fact that he gives everyone in the room a light nudge just so they’ll bloody well focus. “Listen. In a few minutes, I’m not going to be available. I’ll try to keep the potential screaming down to a dull roar, but I can’t guarantee that because I have no idea what Tenebris is up to aside from something _bad_.”

“What? Why?” Donna asks in sudden concern. Beside her, Wilf seems just as disturbed.

“We need exact coordinates for this teleportation to work. We don’t have them here, but Crowley knows exactly where he is. More than that, he and I are twins,” Israfil explains. “Below doesn’t know how to break that connection without destroying him, and I really doubt that’s their goal. They would have done so already.” He has to pause for a minute, because the very thought of it terrifies him. “Crowley is going to share those very complicated coordinates with me, but if he does so blatantly, Tenebris would notice. She’s too smart not to. So, he’ll do it by hiding it.”

“You mean he’ll hide it under torture.” Jack grimaces. “Right. Is there anything we can do to help?”

“If you know as much about spatial mathematics as you seem to, then you may help me figure out the circle, the spacing, and how to arrange all of it once I translate whatever Israfil writes down,” Aziraphale says.

“I might be rusty,” Jack admits. “But the computer that works with the vortex manipulator isn’t exactly a pocket calculator.”

Donna nods. “I can probably help, too. Not like Spaceman could, but I know enough of this to be useful.”

Israfil bites back a gasp as the fingers on his right hand suddenly bend backwards, as if someone is attempting to break them. He has to use his left hand to force them back down to normal. “That’s it. I’m out of time.” Israfil picks up the pen that Aziraphale gave him, which has an excellent brush tip for what Israfil suspects will come out written in the older alphabets. “There is an entire bloody bookstore out there for you lot to linger in, and I’d rather not be…I don’t want to upset anyone.”

“I’m staying,” Adam says flatly, crossing his arms in sulking defiance. “You’re my godfathers.”

“We’ll take turns keeping an eye on you,” Donna interjects, giving Adam a gentle pat on his shoulder. “Someone should. Just in case.”

“All right.” Israfil uncaps the marker and rests it just above the beginning of the scroll that Aziraphale put together. Then he closes his eyes, releases a held breath, and opens up the part of his mind that is always connected to Zaherael.

* * * *

Crowley has decided that he really does not like Tenebris. He was fairly certain of that fact before, but this cinches it. He Does Not Like Tenebris Mulierem.

“We’ve barely begun, Crowley,” she whispers against his ear. “Are you giving in already?”

Patterns. Set patterns.

Then he shrieks as something rakes down his back, claws that travel directly through the gap between his wings. He hopes she isn’t going for the spot he suspects, and then bites back a frustrated groan when she stabs at the nerve clusters that lurk on either side of his spine.

Crowley’s wings spring forth, but before he can do anything, they’re held back, encircled by invisible chains. Crowley has to breathe, but he can’t. He can only struggle against the feel of his wings pulled too far back and up, held in a position that’s only meant for brief moments of beating against the pull of gravity.

He flashes on Gabriel’s face, his violet eyes full of wrath, and starts to panic. No. He can’t do that again. He can’t, he can’t, he can’t—

Then, beneath the agony, he feels the cool silk brush of his brother’s thoughts. _Oh, God_, he sobs in his head. _What took you so long?_

He nearly loses Israfil’s response to the sensation of Tenebris yanking out one of his primaries. He doesn’t care if he screams; it’s what she wants. If she’s happy, she might lay off for a few vital seconds.

Israfil swears in one of the angelic tongues as he picks up on the pain in Crowley’s wing. _It’s only been two hours, Zaherael_.

Crowley nearly starts laughing, uncertain if it’s hysteria or despair. _Not down here, it hasn’t_.

He hates that about Hell. He hates more that Samael isn’t here, because that means the fucking bastard is on Earth. “Of course he isn’t here. That would be too obvious,” Tenebris had said. She can hide within the depths of the fathomless abyss, hide Crowley away from anyone’s notice, but if Samael returned to Hell, every demon in existence would know it at once.

Then he jerks back, gasping, when Tenebris yanks another feather free. Same spot, opposing wing. The agony of it distracts him, lets the stupid fucking annoying pendant she draped around his neck collect his strength.

Her goal is to drain him dry. Not going to happen.

_Acting_ like it’s really happening is such a pain in the arse. The ice on his skin, the binding that isn’t, is actually doing him a favor in that regard.

However, Crowley is going to spend a week baking himself in the sun after this shit is done and over with.

Tenebris walks around so that she can face him. She’s caressing both sides of her face with stolen, gold-tipped feathers. “I’d forgotten how lovely they were. I wonder what it would take it blacken your wings again. Would it be like last time, do you think? When Samael whispered promises in your ear and then left you to bleed so prettily on the ground?”

_What. Is. She. Talking. About?_ Israfil growls.

_NO!_ Crowley closes off most of his connection to his twin before Israfil has to deal with any more of this, before Tenebris can hear the echo of that protective anger. Also, he doesn’t want to have that conversation, ever, but especially not right now.

Patterns. He set the patterns. He’s done it before and it’s worked.

God, he hopes it’s working.

Crowley opens his eyes and stares at Tenebris. “If you think that’s the reason I Fell, you are fucking deluded.”

Tenebris smiles. “But it was part of it, wasn’t it? The first betrayal. It was such a lovely sensation. It led you to us, and I’ve always been so glad of that.”

“What?”

Tenebris uses his own blood-tipped feather to trace the angles of Crowley’s face. “You did try so hard to save me, Healer. You just missed a piece. I never blamed you for that. I admired it, in fact. You helped to make me what I am.”

Crowley raises an eyebrow. “A vicious, manky trollop who’s utterly gone to the dogs?”

Fuck, fuck, fuck, he had no idea he’d missed _anything_. It explains too much.

Fucking fabulous.

Tenebris grasps his chin with harsh fingers and sharp claws. “I do not know what all of those words mean, but I recognize an insult when I hear it.”

Crowley grins at her. Patterns. Set patterns. “You’ve been missing out. I’ve got so many more where that came from.”

She drags her index finger, claw fully extended, down the side of his face. He feels wetness follow, and his skin burns. “Every insult you grant me will result in pain for you.”

“Really?” Crowley takes a brief moment to thank Heaven that demons are so bloody predictable. “Have at it, then, you barmy bitch.”

* * * *

It doesn’t take nearly as long as Aziraphale feared it might for Israfil to write everything down. He keeps his jaw clamped shut, eyes closed, refusing to voice whatever he is feeling of Crowley’s…current experiences Below. At first, Israfil’s writing upon the scroll is frenetic, the characters almost losing definition just from the poor marker’s inability to keep up with the demand placed on it.

Adam realizes what is needed before any of them; indeed, he is probably the only one who could do so, anyway. He has belief, a deep, unshakable faith in himself that Aziraphale has never quite managed to possess. Adam wraps his arms around Israfil from behind, closes his eyes, and shores up everything Israfil does with the gifted power of his presence. The writing slows down, the characters become crisp or smooth, depending on the type, and Israfil looks to be in a bit less pain. Aziraphale hopes that whatever Adam is doing translates through Israfil’s connection to Crowley.

An hour later, Israfil drops the marker and slumps to one side so quickly that he falls out of the chair. “Sorry!” Adam yelps in surprise. “I didn’t realize he was going to do that, and he’s heavy!”

“He’s a twig! How can he be that heavy?” Donna teases in a light voice, and then frowns when she tries to lift him. “Never mind, he’s a very weighty twig.”

Jack is the one who scoops Israfil up from the rug, taking him to the sofa near the fireplace. It’s May, but Aziraphale snaps his fingers and creates a fire in the hearth anyway, just in case. Israfil doesn’t stir at all, not when his head is lifted for a pillow, nor when Donna covers him with the tartan blanket.

Martha kneels down next to the sofa, taking hold of Israfil’s wrist. The concern now on her face, her gentle hands, reminds Aziraphale that, for all her stubbornness, Mrs. Jones-Smith is also a physician. “Is there a normal temperature range or pulse rate for you lot?”

“Israfil and Crowley both run to cooler temperatures, about two degrees lower than a human’s normal range. If his skin feels normal to you, then he’s too warm,” Aziraphale says. “As to pulse…well…that’s semi-optional.”

“Semi-optional?” Martha asks, quirking an eyebrow up at him.

Aziraphale gathers up the long scroll that Israfil created while trying to figure out how to explain before he realizes he has a better option. “These are Israfil’s words, not mine. These bodies of ours are designed to be exceptionally sturdy. Basically, our blood will hold onto oxygen well beyond the limits of human endurance. We therefore tend to breathe only when it feels necessary, which is not often. By the same nature, blood does not need to be steadily pumped through our veins, as there isn’t much risk of necrosis when there is not yet oxygen starvation. Severe wounds will increase heart rate and respiration both. Our metabolisms rarely need to be supplemented by nutrients, though I’ll grant you that becoming exceptionally sodden does make one rather thirsty afterwards, even if we can cheat our own biology and sober up just by thinking about it. I would only be concerned by Israfil’s physical state if he begins to respond in ways that resemble human distress.”

Martha nods. “He’s a bit too cool, then. The blanket and the fire are both a good idea.” She and Aziraphale both turn their heads in the direction of the store when a bit of bickering begins to occur. “Oi,” she mutters, and gets up to go join the others.

Adam leans his head against the sofa cushions next to Israfil’s lax arm. “Do you think Crowley’s okay?”

Aziraphale refuses to lie to Adam, even if some irritating instinct wants him to do so just so the boy has a moment of comfort. Lies have never been comforting to Adam Young. “I don’t think he is at the moment, but I truly believe he _will_ be.”

Adam nods. “Okay. Thanks.”

Aziraphale nods in return and goes back out into his shop, inspecting the scroll while he listens to the Doctor’s former companions discuss the pending mobile phone call. “You call him,” Martha says to Mickey. “I’d probably just yell at him.”

“Oi, I have _no_ problem yelling at him,” Donna insists. “Let me call Spaceboy!”

“It’s my mobile we’re potentially blowing up, here,” Mickey says dryly. “If anyone gets to yell at his skinny arse, it’s me. Jack?”

“It probably shouldn’t be me, anyway. Sore subject and all that,” Jack replies in agreement. Aziraphale is still a bit fascinated by the man’s rather flat American accent; if one listens closely, there are quirks of language that demonstrate it not to really be American at all.

“Hold out the mobile, and maybe cross your fingers, all right?” Jack requests, and Mickey holds out his mobile in one hand, arm fully extended from his body.

Aziraphale watches as Jack aims the device on his left wrist at Mickey’s mobile. He doesn’t see any energy pass from one device to the other, but he can feel it in the air. Intriguing. Aziraphale hasn’t given much thought to what awaits humanity in the future, not lately, being far too concerned with making certain humanity had a future at all. Previous to that threat, he’d given up on trying to predict the course of history because he was always wrong.

Now Aziraphale finds himself wondering again. He’ll still be alive in three thousand years, barring any unfortunate incidents. So will Crowley, and Israfil. Adam, too, is a possibility, though none of them are yet sure how the young man will age after reaching his majority.

He once promised Crowley they would visit the stars. It would be nice to do so without having to leave the physical plane.

Oh, that reminds him of something unpleasant. Aziraphale temporarily rolls up the scroll and beckons them over once the apparent power boost to the mobile has been completed—without an explosion, even. He suspects Adam would have joined them, but he fell asleep just moments ago. “There is something I need to warn you all about, and I’ll need to do the same for Israfil when the time comes.”

“You mean aside from the fact that building a portal from scratch is dangerous?” Jack says bluntly.

“Yes, aside from that,” Aziraphale murmurs in agreement. He doesn’t necessarily want to focus on how it could all go very wrong. “I don’t care what your religion or your faith tells you. What you need to understand is that Below, this other dimensional plane, is not only real, it is an exceptionally harsh place. It was designed for revenge; it was designed to destroy. Being down there is to breathe in toxicity at every moment. It can make you lose your very sense of self.”

Donna realizes it first. Such an intelligent young lady. “Time isn’t a constant. You have no idea how long he’s going to be down there, even if we make a successful portal an hour from now.”

“Precisely.” Aziraphale worries at the scroll in his hands and then forces himself to stop. “There have been several times when Crowley had no choice but to linger Below for far longer than either of us preferred. Either he’d gotten himself into trouble, or someone of higher rank among the political factions decided to be irritable, or…anything, really. They don’t exactly need a reason to be foul. It’s part of the poison in the air.

“Each time he’s come back, I’ve had to help him remember what came before,” Aziraphale continues softly. “The first time Below kept him for an extended period, he couldn’t remember my name, but he could remember me. We were fortunate to have already known each other for a thousand years at that point, or…I’m not certain what would have happened. After Crowley was able to piece his memory back together, we worked out a system. He reminds himself of what needs to be done in ways even I’m not certain of, but he calls it setting patterns. He sets two of them when he recognizes a long-term visit Below is about to occur. The first pattern tells him to find me the moment he’s released—even if he can’t remember my name, or where I dwell. He does not stop until he finds me, because the secondary pattern tells him that I will help him recover what was taken from him.” Aziraphale hesitates. “He does not always regain everything. Sometimes that taking is quite literal.”

Donna nods. “It was driving him bonkers that he couldn’t remember everything that happened in Dardanus with the Doctor, but he just blew it off as a wine for lunch sort of day.”

Aziraphale smiles at her. “I imagine it might’ve been that, too. The point is, when Crowley returns? Don’t let anyone aside from myself approach him, because he will _not_ know who you are, not at all. Give me time enough to call him back so he will be capable of recognizing you as allies.”

“You mean he might turn violent if we don’t,” Mickey realizes.

Aziraphale considers it. “It’s always a possibility, but less so this time than others.”

“Because before, he was the opposition,” Donna says.

“Yes.” Aziraphale shakes off a gloom that wants to settle over him like a shroud. This is going to work; he will not allow it to fail. “This is what Israfil wrote down before losing consciousness on my rug.”

All four of the humans crowd around him to get a glance at the scroll. “It’s a beautiful alphabet, but…I can’t read it,” Martha says in surprise. “Does the TARDIS’s translation matrix wear off?”

Jack shakes his head. “No. This is something the TARDIS has never seen, so she can’t translate it.”

That is an interesting bit of information, but currently irrelevant. Aziraphale makes a copy of the scroll, which causes Martha to lean back in surprise before she decides to accept that Aziraphale simply willed a copy into existence…which is exactly what he did. Then he applies a translation spell to the original.

“There.” Aziraphale unrolls the translated scroll, its alphabet replaced by far more modern sigils and numbers. “Those are the coordinates we need to combine with a standard Summoning spell in order to recall him.” Fortunately, he knows exactly where that book is located. Making copies of its pages won’t be difficult.

“That’s a lot of information.” Mickey whistles. “I was expecting something a bit shorter. You’re saying this whole thing is where Crowley is right now?”

“I imagine he probably set the time ahead a bit, to make certain we wouldn’t miss, but yes.” Aziraphale continues perusing the scroll and then pauses in disbelief. “You want me to do _what_?”

“What is it?” Jack asks, and then his eyes widen. “Holy shit.”

Aziraphale lowers the scroll and blows out a long sigh. “Oh, dear.”

“What? Someone translate this for the idiots in the audience,” Mickey requests.

“You’re not an idiot, dear boy.” Aziraphale frowns as he resumes reading. “Crowley included the means to make this not merely an incorporeal transition, but a corporeal one. I’ve just never done anything like that before.”

Donna smiles in relief. “You mean giving him a body back!”

“Exactly.” Aziraphale tries not to make a face over what he’s reading. The coordinates are specific to Crowley, but the transition is not. He is definitely plotting. “This far more complicated than a mere portal.”

“It’s just a translation of matter from one form to another,” Jack says, surprising Aziraphale. “It’s actually less difficult than the portal. Otherwise, a vortex manipulator couldn’t keep you in one piece during any time-traveling jaunts.”

Martha glares at Jack. “I still felt like I was going to fall to bits just from _one ride_ with that bloody vortex manipulator.”

“It’s not really meant to transport more than one person, and that was three of us,” Jack replies in apparent reminder. “Granted, it always made me want to vomit when I used it by myself, so I know what you mean.”

“You shouldn’t use chalk for this.” Aziraphale glances behind him to view Wilf, who is seated at an available table and starting to look a bit peaked from all the excitement. “It’s dusty and easy to erase. You lot want one of those new chalk markers they make now.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what that is,” Aziraphale admits. Crowley might be right about his, er, habit of clinging to the past. A waistcoat is one thing, but a chalk marker sounds quite useful.

“I have a couple with us, actually,” Martha says. “In our kit. The makers replaced standard chalk for crime scenes, but they’re useful for other things, too. I’ll fetch them.”

Mickey takes another look at his mobile. “Right. While she’s doing that, I’ll give the Doctor a ring and see if I get anywhere.”

Donna uses the opportunity to steal the translated scroll from Aziraphale’s hands. “Oh, this is going to be fun.”

“What?” Aziraphale doesn’t like feeling as if he missed something. It’s usually something ridiculously obvious.

“This won’t make a circle, love.” Donna glances up at him; intrigue and challenge make her eyes shine with delight. “That’s got to be a dome.”

Aziraphale beams at her. “Wonderful! I thought it would change shape, but I hadn’t yet figured out what form. Excellent!”

Donna glances up at his ceiling. “It’s a good thing you’ve got a rather round design to the front of this shop. Might have to move the stacks, though.”

Aziraphale brushes that concern aside. “Easily done, and probably safer for my books, as well.”

Mickey suddenly looks over at them, grinning. “I got bloody voicemail. It’s not an answer, but it’s still him, first time I’ve gotten through in years! Same ol’ voice and everything!”

“Then for God’s sake, leave Skinny a bleedin’ message already!” Donna insists. “And tell him it’s Samael. Give him advance bloody warning.”

“Samael. Right.” Mickey listens to what must be quite a rambling message before he starts speaking again. “Hey, Doctor. Martha is making me be the one to phone you, since she’s afraid if she rings you up, she’s just going to yell at you. Not sure why she thinks I won’t, but…yeah, I can probably save that for later.”

“Oi,” Donna mutters. Aziraphale pats her arm in understanding.

“Anyway,” Mickey says, “today is twenty-second May of 2020. Problem is, it’s been twenty-second May for several days now. It just keeps on repeatin’ over and over, with a reset point every day at noon, right on the bloody dot. Only people who’ve traveled in time, or stood outside of time—don’t ask, I don’t even want to know, an’ I’m the one dealing with it—are the ones who’re aware of the repeat bit. Everyone else forgets. I swear it’s like that Bill Murray fellow in _Groundhog Day_, but at least _he_ didn’t have to worry about Weeping Angels turning up, along with some other things I’d really rather not deal with.”

Mickey pauses, sighs, and continues. “Look. I know you’re wantin’ to stay away from us, God knows why, but we need your stupid, skinny arse right now. We don’t know how to fix this. This is your sort of problem, Doctor. Hell, we don’t even know what’s causing it, though the ginger keeps yelling about someone named Samael, whoever that is. I don’t know if you can break through whatever is causing this time loop. Maybe if you drop in a day earlier or something. I was never really good at the time travel bit, more the shooting the bad guys part. Just…we need you, all right? We might—_might_—even miss you being about. So you know, come and save the Earth again, all right? I’m really starting to hate this day. Jack suggested I leave this mobile on and charged, so you can track the signal. I hope that works. I’d better see you soon, because if you make my wife sad, I’m gonna kick your arse out and about all over London.” Then he hangs up the call and takes a deep breath. “I’m serious about that last part. If he doesn’t answer, it’s an arse-kicking. All over London.”

* * * *

Tenebris grips his hair and pulls his head up so he can look in her eyes. Gross.

“What’s my name?” she asks, a poison smile of too many teeth.

“Bloody fucking Tenebris Mulierem,” he retorts. He knows because the barmy bint keeps reminding him.

Her poison smile widens. “And what’s _your _name?”

He clenches his jaw shut and glares at her. He doesn’t know, because Hell does that to you—and she’s well aware of it. Barmy bint.

“We’re so close, then,” she whispers, caressing the pendant that lays like a lead weight on his chest.

_Lead balloon_, he thinks nonsensically, and has to bite back laughter she wouldn’t understand. Not that he really understands it either, right now, but he remembers that it’s funny.

“I’ll leave you to hang about for a bit, then. When I come back…” Tenebris leaves the threat hanging.

He waits for the door to clang shut. Then he listens, but there are no fingers of fabric, no reaching shadows.

Patterns.

He clenches the muscles along his left side and gives the stupid chains another firm yank.

There. Balance point. He can sense the weight of that anchor balanced perfectly on the edge of the wall. The chains won’t fall. The anchor won’t move. Not until he’s ready.

He starts work on the chains on his right side, but it doesn’t take long until the anchors are resting perfectly in position. Nearly there.

Now he just has to wait for her to come back. The moment she reaches for that pendant, he’s going to make her regret all of this.

He’d just like to remember the _how_ of it all.

Oh, well. He’ll figure it out. Eventually.


	10. Decidedly Not Ginger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get weirder. This is decidedly not the Doctor's fault.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This should have been out yesterday. Sorry for the delay; hard to get things done when you're being harrassed.

The Doctor is willing to concede that this attempt at breaking through the time loop isn’t going so well, but that’s mostly because she’s hanging from the TARDIS console after her ship up and decided that one of the walls was now the floor.

“Really, please love, I need you to fix this!” she yells. “We do not need another incident with me falling out and crashing through a train roof!” She’d still been fresh from a regeneration right then. If she repeats that little stunt now, it’ll be another regeneration. Or death. Honestly, she’s two faces ahead of the game right now and is sort of wondering if she actually _has_ that genetic limit. Her mum would be the sort to arrange that on the sly just to spite Rassilon.

Then again, this could be her dad’s fault. Not quite human human-shaped person, after all. A bloody _Celestial_.

If home is ever a possibility again without lots of angry people chasing after her, the Doctor is going to be having a long talk with Mum about Things Her Son/Daughter Needed to Know.

Gravity abruptly reverts itself. The Doctor lands face-first on the console next to the hourglass and dings her knee against the lower edge as gravity pulls her down. “Thass’ better,” she slurs. “Maybe lighten it up a bit?” The TARDIS’s inner crystals flash before gravity returns to something approaching normal.

The Doctor lifts her head, gives herself a brief shake, and grabs the monitor. “Oh. We did make it through,” she observes. “You should really give me a bit more warning when we’re about to crash, love.”

Then it’s a race around the console, adjusting altitude, convincing the TARDIS that yes, she has thrusters, and yes, they really do work. “REPOSITION!” she yells, typing in coordinates for the same location, just five minutes ahead. The TARDIS groans around her, but the jump from point to point within the Earth’s atmosphere gives the Doctor time to land them instead of crash them.

Everything falls silent after the final, resonating bass thump of arrival. The Doctor takes a happy moment to breathe, checks that all of her parts are still attached to her other parts, and smiles. “Knew you could do it, old girl.” Then the Doctor makes a face and glares upwards. “Oi, that was impolite language! You’ve got plenty of time for a kip. I have to go have…well…”

The Doctor winces. “I have to go have at least two awkward reunions. Ugh, guilt, I don’t like you. I know I deserve you, but guiillllt.”

She checks her pocket; psychic paper, sonic, keys, Mum’s handkerchief from Dardanus—whoops—and a fiver that Graham had shoved into her hand last week so she could grab chips without borrowing money from an ATM or whatnot. Good to go.

“Guilt should be a thing you can carry in your pockets, so then you can take it bloody well out of your pockets,” the Doctor complains as she opens the door. She steps out into an unnatural quiet. The street lamps have kicked on, revealing that there really isn’t anyone about. Most shop lights are off; flat lights in upper storeys are on.

She takes a quick glance around, stretching out to get a feel for things. “Definitely London. Definitely Soho. Definitely Friday the twenty-second of May, year’s 2020, time…” She wiggles her nose. “Bloody time loops. Seven o’clock in the evening, three minutes past.”

The Doctor feels an odd itch along her skin, a feeling that is trying to tell her she should either go home or leave Soho. It doesn’t feel like a bad thing. It’s much more like the nudge of a warning. The humans are definitely listening; normally bustling Friday night Soho is bloody deserted.

“That’s weird.” Soho doesn’t really know _how_ to be deserted. It’s like Genghis Khan changing his mind mid-conquest and becoming a monk, it’s so odd.

The Doctor sniffs the air. She smells time-travel. More specifically, artron energy. Most of it smells old, like it’s been away from the vortex for a long time, but there’s a whiff of it that’s new. “Three repeats, a normal Friday, and one Thursday ago,” she murmurs. Someone popped in right before the time loop started, but not with a TARDIS, so she can’t go and blame herself.

“Oh, that’s not all there is.” She breathes in and can smell the essence of a Time Lord’s power in the air, but not attached to a person. It’s been pulled free and just tossed aside, like it’s rubbish that was in the way.

“Rude,” the Doctor says, and begins following that scent. It’s familiar. It’s almost like…

She pauses in front of a building and looks up. Bar, art gallery, not sure about the rest, but the discarding bit happened up there somewhere. “That’s me. A former me. A bit of me. In fact, that’s Sandshoes.” She purses her lips just before her eyes widen.

There is only one person on this planet who would be carrying around that much Essence of Sandshoes besides herself. Donna. Oh, bugger. Please let that not mean anything bad. Please, oh please, please—

“Scuse me?”

The Doctor whirls around, enjoying the way her coat flares out a bit. Dramatic, that’s her. “Yes, hello?”

There’s a young woman a few steps away, human-shaped at the least. Denims, thin-sleeved hooded white pullover, combat boots, and a dark wide-brimmed hat. Blonde and brown hair is trailing down beneath it, but the hat’s brim is shading her face.

That is so cheating. Maybe the Doctor should get a hat.

No. Best not.

“What’s going on? I mean, you’re prodding at me, I’m supposing that means you wanted something. Right?”

“Sort of.” The young woman sounds hesitant. “See, I was looking for someone, and…well, they might not appreciate it, given how things went total cock-up last time we hung about with each other. I got this far with looking for them, and now I don’t know what to do next.”

“Given that there’s no one about, I can’t say I blame you for the lack of finding them,” the Doctor says. “Also, I don’t really…I’m not really from here. Just visiting. Why do you smell like time travel?” she asks, and then squeezes her eyes shut. “Yeah, ignore that last part, I’m still figuring out where my mouth’s off button is.”

“That’s all right. I’m not from around here either, not anymore.” The young woman glances around. “Actually, not sure I ever made it to Soho even when I was a local. Bit out of my budget.”

The Doctor feels sudden pain in both her hearts. It’s so familiar, that ache. “Why was it a mess, you and your friend? What went wrong?”

The woman slowly pulls off her hat. There are streaks of blonde bleached through dark brown hair, and she has the richest, most soulful brown eyes the Doctor has ever seen, and she’s seen a lot of eyes by now. “Human/Time-Lord meta-crisis. They’re not supposed to exist.”

No. No, no, no. “How long?” the Doctor forces past her lips. They’re numb. They’re not supposed to feel like that.

“Forty years. I mean, it was a good forty years, an’ I wouldn’t trade it, but the end was…” The woman sniffs hard. “The end was rough.”

The Doctor nods. That numb feeling is spreading. “You’re not aging.”

“No, not really.” She sniffs again. “I don’t really know why, and I had time to test it. Guess there was a bit more to being the Bad Wolf than we ever really thought.”

“Right. Uhm.” The Doctor swallows. She just spent part of her day crying, and now she’s right on the edge of it again. “Do you still hug people? I hug people. I like people—most people. Not really fond of King James I right now. Tried to drown me as a witch.”

Rose Tyler sniffs again and launches herself forward with an anguished cry. The Doctor catches her, wraps her arms around a shape and body and scent that is still so, so familiar, and—yes, there it is with the crying again. “Rose.”

“Hello, Doctor. You look nice,” Rose whispers.

“Yeah?” The Doctor grins without letting go. “I’m still getting’ used to it. Everyone ignores a bloke in a suit, but give them a woman in a coat and suddenly everyone thinks they need to be in your way.” She hesitates. “It’s not a problem, is it? Woman in a coat?”

“No.” Rose is holding on for dear life. “No, it’s not a problem. Promise it’s not. Oh, I missed you.”

The Doctor steps back, still crying and grinning like a lunatic. “How did you even get here?”

“Well.” Rose wipes at her eyes. She doesn’t wear nearly as much eye makeup anymore, and the Doctor loves it. She’d love it if her eyes were still surrounded by mascara. She’d love it if Rose painted her entire _face_ with it. Doesn’t matter at all. “So, punching holes in dimensional walls was never gonna work again, but turns out, there really were Time Lords in my dad’s reality.”

“Pete’s World had Time Lords?” the Doctor asks in disbelief. “Where?”

“There’d been a war, like the Time War here,” Rose says. The Doctor realizes they’re standing in the middle of a walkway, holding hands, and can’t bring herself to be much bothered. “So they locked themselves away, and when they unlocked things, thinking it was time to be part of the universe again, it was sort of hard to miss. Drove Torchwood’s instruments mad, it did.”

The Doctor stares at her. “You used that old dimensional cannon to send yourself straight to Gallifrey.” It’s madness, but it’s also genius. She can appreciate that.

“Well, yeah. I mean, it worked. They weren’t so fond of it, though. You never warned me that the lot of them were completely arrogant bastards,” Rose says bluntly, but she’s still smiling. “None of ’em were willing to give me a ride home, even though they’d made it up to T-90s before giving up on ship-building. Claimed everything in my reality was a hot mess, an’ they weren’t touching it.” She pauses. “You didn’t exist there, which I thought was just…every universe should have a Doctor,” she says with a smile. “But there was one Time Lady who decided she’d help me anyway. She was called, uh, Romanadvoratrelundar—”

The Doctor grins. “They had a Romana. That’s brilliant. She was a friend, a good friend. Is. Was. Y’know, I actually don’t know anymore, but her helping you sounds like something she’d have done.”

Rose squeezes the Doctor’s hands. “She did seem a bit less like a tosser than the rest. She helped me to alter the dimensional cannon so it would phase through the walls instead of punching holes in them. That altering it meant it needed more power, so I got to ricochet off a black hole on this side of things to make it to Earth, and…well, here I am?”

The Doctor hugs her again; she can’t help it. “You’re mad. You’re brilliant. My mad, brilliant Rose.”

“Mostly just mad.” Rose lets out a watery giggle. “It’s so good to see you. It’s been a while.”

“I’m not gonna ask how long. Yet. I mean, it’s supposed to be impolite to ask a lady her age even if you’re another lady. Right?” The Doctor considers that and shrugs. “But why right now? Why right here? I’m fond of coincidences, but we’re in the middle of a time loop, so that makes it a big one.”

Rose releases the Doctor and digs around in her denim pocket, holding out a device that is lit green all the way up its visible scale. “Biometric scanner for Time Lord energy. I mean, since there’s just one of you an’ all—or at least just one of you all that’s interested in Earth—I just pointed, really. It was attached to the cannon so I’d get where I needed to go.”

She takes a breath. “I got here Thursday. There was a big concentration of Time Lord energy in London that the scanner picked up on, but I missed by a bit and landed in Cornwall. Took me a bit to get back here, and by then the energy had drifted apart as it does its normal settling thing, I’ve kinda been wandering around London on a Friday for four days now. I was about to give up and try ringing up one of the others, or Torchwood, and then this thing just starts going off.”

“Because I got here.” The Doctor wipes her face dry, but uses her sleeves first before remembering handkerchief, she has a bloody handkerchief! “So, want to go have some awkward reunions with me, then?”

Rose gives the Doctor a look so familiar that it makes it hard to breathe. “How awkward are we talking about, here?”

“Mickey and Martha. At least,” the Doctor answers. “They, uh, called me. On a mobile I forgot I owned. One of the Fam found it in the TARDIS’s library and told me I had voicemail, and uh…well. I’m a bit behind schedule, even though I’m right on time.”

“The Fam?” Rose asks, falling into step beside the Doctor as they start walking. For a few seconds, it feels like two thousand years haven’t passed, and nothing’s changed at all. Except bras. Bras are uncomfortable, but the Doctor hasn’t had time yet to visit a planet that’s figured out how to make them not so itchy.

“Group of people I know now, you’ll love them, but it’s a long story. Well. Short story?” The Doctor shrugs. “It’s a _later_ story. Worried about the time loop right now, so, off to the awkward meetings part.”

“How—how is Mickey?” Rose asks hesitantly.

“Dunno, haven’t seen them in a long time. He sounds like he’s ready to kick my arse, so that means he’s probably fine, though. Last I knew, he married Martha.”

“Martha Jones.” Rose considers that thoughtfully. “Okay, yeah. I can see that. I hope that’s working out, then.”

“Jack is also _definitely_ here,” the Doctor adds a moment later. “Ugh, more guilt. I hate you, guilt.” She can feel that fixed-point-in-time-ness, though it’s currently a distracted fixed-point. “There, bookshop on the corner. If Jack’s there, then I bet Mickey is, too.”

“Or you’ll have a few minutes to drool over books, and then we keep looking,” Rose says innocently.

The Doctor glances at her, surprised to realize it’s not a downward look anymore. It’s face to face, on the level.

She swallows as she realizes she is so very much still into ladies. That probably makes her gay now, or a lesbian, or maybe pansexual? Something. That’s probably all right, though. It’s at least the right Earth time period to be attracted to the same gender instead of what it was like thirty years ago and more.

Rose probably doesn’t feel the same way, not for that. They were friends first, before things got complicated by Feelings Everywhere. Bugger.

“This is weird, right? I mean just—us meeting again, even though I know it _has _to have been a while for you. Definitely been a while for me,” Rose says. “Because it’s _weird._”

“A bit, yeah. Maybe it’s supposed to happen this way, though,” the Doctor replies, but she suddenly has an odd, cold chill crawl up her arms, and it’s nothing to do with the weather. “I mean, I travel in time in a box. Weird coincidences are sort of a given.”

It feels right, all of it, even with that Stay Away vibe in the air. Rose smells like Rose, talks like Rose, acts like Rose, feels like Rose, so maybe the Bad Wolf isn’t the issue, but…

But the Doctor feels like she’s being set up for something. She’s never liked that feeling.

“A.Z. Fell & Co., established 1604,” Rose reads out the tiny gold print above the door. “Y’know, I’ve worked in a shop or three. Most shops want their name to stand out a bit. Granted, it’s an old building. Maybe they just didn’t feel like updating.”

“A.Z. Fell, 1604.” The Doctor frowns. “Good year, 1604. England and Spain stopped fighting—well, they stopped officially fighting, anyway. First performance of _Othello_. Good showing, too, I rather liked it. This, though, this…I wouldn’t have missed this. Not unless it was meant to be missed.”

“Why’s that, then?” Rose asks, bending over to read the paper slotted into the glass of the door.

“Because Hatchards was the first real bookshop in London, established 1797 on Piccadilly out in Westminster by John Hatchard. Decent bloke. Loved books, loved printing them. Bit too religious for my preferences, but it was the done thing at the time if you wanted to keep everyone else happy.”

“Doctor, you have got to read this!” Rose exclaims, and the Doctor budges in next to Rose to get a better view of the handwritten sign.

_I open the shop on most weekdays about 9:30 or perhaps 10am. While occasionally I open the shop as early as 8, I have been known not to open until 1, except on Tuesday. I tend to close about 3:30pm, or earlier if something needs tending to. However, I might occasionally keep the shop open until 8 or 9 at night, you never know when you might need some light reading. On days that I am not in, the shop will remain closed. On weekends, I will open the shop during normal hours unless I am elsewhere. Bank holidays will be treated in the usual fashion, with early closings on Wednesdays, or sometimes Fridays. (For Sundays see Tuesdays.)_

“They’re a nutter,” Rose says.

“That’s even better.” The Doctor looks at the closed blinds, glances at the contradictory sign, tries the door (locked) and then pulls out her sonic. One brief burst and the door is unlocked.

“Doctor, have you ever figured out that breaking and entering is a crime?” Rose asks in amusement.

The Doctor grins back at her. “Yeah, but then you don’t have nearly as much fun,” she replies, and pushes open the door. Then she stops dead in her tracks, because she can’t decide where to stare. “There’s so many books, and oh that’s a folio I have to touch it, but the ceiling is covered in spatial mathematics! It’s two of my favorite things in one place!” The Doctor follows the numbers flowing across the ceiling with hungry eyes. “Am I drooling? I think I’m drooling.”

“I think you’re getting pretty close, yeah,” Rose comments. “Maybe they’ll have a bucket.”

“Bother,” they both hear someone say, sounding flustered. “I could have sworn that door was locked!”

The Doctor smiles at the man who rounds the corner of the nearest set of shelves. He has rather fluffy white-blond hair and kind blue eyes, and is holding a scroll with both hands that’s unwound and trailing behind him. He looks visibly startled to see them both standing there. “I’m terribly sorry, but we’re closed—”

Then he halts and stares at them. “Rainbow shirt that isn’t a rainbow,” he murmurs. “You must be the Doctor.”

The Doctor feels her eyes light up. Now that she’s met one, she has a feel for that sort of energy now. “Oh—you’re my second Celestial in like three hours! That’s brilliant! Also, I love the books, I will try not to drool on any of them, promise, but why is your ceiling covered in maths and can I touch all of it?”

“What’s a Celestial?” Rose asks, sounding a bit bewildered. The Celestial looks a bit boggled, as well.

“Oh, they’re myths. Well, not-myths, since I just met one today and there’s another one, but I thought they were myths. Time loop, books, maths, myth, and you—this is turning out to be the best day ever!”

“I apologize, but it is not currently _my_ best day.” The blond man sighs, but he still steps forward and holds out his hand. “My name is Aziraphale.”

“A.Z. Fell. Aziraphale. Oh, good choice, that,” the Doctor says, delighted. “You know my name, but this one is—”

“On a Japanese scroll from the 1300s with the title of Bad Wolf,” Aziraphale interjects, raising both eyebrows.

Rose holds up both hands. “Mostly not my fault. I prefer Rose, by the way.”

The Doctor takes another look at the maths on the ceiling, tracing it along the walls, and then looking down. All of the equations are converging to this rounded front of the store to a single point already marked out on the floor with a large circle. The furniture has been pushed against the walls, out of the way. From the marks on the wooden floors, the bookshelves have been moved, too.

Then she looks back up at Aziraphale. “Why are you building a portal, and what are you powering it with?”

Aziraphale gives her a fretful look that doesn’t quite hide a fierce sort of consideration. “Second Celestial in three hours, hmm? By any chance, did you come here directly from Dardanus in 1020 BC?”

“Yeah, I did. I found a voicemail on a mobile I forgot I owned, so…” The Doctor frowns. “Wait. You know Crawly?”

“Crawly?” Rose repeats under her breath. The Doctor elbows her.

“_Crowley_,” Aziraphale corrects in what sounds like genuine annoyance. “And yes, I am quite familiar with him. He is quite literally my oldest and dearest friend. Among other things.”

“Oh, he changed his name! He mentioned he was thinking of changing it!” The Doctor grins. _Other things_ sounds like it’s complicated, and probably not her business, but she’s got ears and eyes; she’ll figure it out. “That does have a better ring to it. Very Gaelic. Fits with the red hair and all.”

“Are you always this…enthusiastic?” Aziraphale asks, starting to look a bit shell-shocked.

Rose bites back a smile. “You get used to this. Love your opening hours sign, by the way.”

“I love stuff like this, so words just happen.” The Doctor points at Aziraphale’s clothing. “I also love the waistcoat, because who doesn’t love a good waistcoat? Philistines, that’s who. And I mean that literally, they hated waistcoats. There was running involved to get away from them. Honestly, just over a waistcoat!”

Aziraphale glances down at his clothing. “Er, thank you. Uh…” He brushes one hand through his hair, making it stick up in distressed little tufts. “I didn’t realize the two of you were that familiar with each other, Doctor. Crowley doesn’t recall the meeting in Dardanus very well, given that it happened three thousand years ago.”

“I’m familiar enough with Crowley to be concerned by portals and such in a bookshop during a time loop with Friday repeating itself, and you being a bit cagey about it all. I guess I know him well enough, yeah,” the Doctor admits. “What’s wrong?”

“The portal is for him. To…well, to rescue him,” Aziraphale says. “From a different plane of existence.”

The Doctor’s smile drops from her face. “Let me help.”

* * * *

Aziraphale doesn’t say no. In fact, he looks so relieved that the Doctor feels a fresh burst of worry about the entire mess. Then the Celestial tells them they’re waiting for Martha and Mickey to return from a supply run, so in the meantime, there isn’t much else to do except greet the others.

“Guiiilllllt,” the Doctor whinges again. She’s aware that it’s whinging, but everything is going to be so _awkward!_

Aziraphale reaches out and pats the Doctor’s shoulder. There is a bit of something psychic beneath, comfort and fondness that surprises her. “It won’t be nearly as bad as you think. Remember that they’re good people, my dear, and it will be fine. Also, it is very nice to meet you both, but I really don’t have more time to spare right now.”

Jack finds them first. He emerges from a back room, sees the Doctor and Rose, and immediately grabs up the Doctor and Rose in a hug at the same time. “Oi, wait—greedy!” the Doctor yells, but Rose is laughing, so fine. She’ll make due.

The Doctor had forgotten that Jack smells like temptation in a bottle, but someone forgot the bottle. That is _truly_ unfair.

“Oh, I wasn’t expecting this. This is fucking amazing,” Jack breathes. The Doctor can sense his absolute joy, and it makes her feel both loved and again wracked with the guilt. “I like the new look, Doc. Very you,” he says. “Dig the hair, Rose.”

Rose laughs again. “Says Mister Vanity, here!”

When Jack puts them down, he takes a breath and then glares at the Doctor. “Where the _hell_ have you been all this time? You didn’t even pick up your damned phone when we called!”

“Okay, second part of that is sort of my fault, but not really. Regeneration from tenth face to eleventh—well, sort of tenth, long story, saving it for later—was, uhm…bad. Violent. I ended up crashing the TARDIS onto Amy’s garden shed. Pretty sure her aunt still hates me for that. The entire ship had to do a full self-repair, inside and out. Ever since then, the phone’s been a bit iffy, and you know how the TARDIS feels about taking messages if I’m not about.” The Doctor reaches into her pocket and pulls out her mobile. “S’why I’ve got one of these now.”

“And not answering the other mobile Donna gave you?” Jack asks.

“It got misplaced, but it wasn’t my doing! One of the Fam found in the library stuck inside a book. Lost in the reconfiguration, I suppose, but it was there for…uhm…a while. Other than that?” The Doctor gives Jack a helpless look. “I don’t really know how to answer that question. Not concisely, anyway. I mean, it’s a lot to summarize. Help?”

Jack considers that. “Okay, fine. Where the hell have you been in five words or less?”

That’s easy. “Screwing up really, really badly,” the Doctor answers.

Jack’s face breaks into another wide grin. “So, about like usual, huh?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” she agrees, and ends up in another hug for it.

Jack then looks at Rose like part of his heart came home. “What about you, Rose?”

The Doctor understands that expression. She feels the same way.

“If we’re still applying the five-word rule? It’s a very long story, but: bounced off a black hole,” Rose explains. “I don’t want to have to repeat the larger part more than once, especially since Mickey jaunted off on a shopping trip.”

Jack nods. “Yeah, he and Martha had to go out for more chalk markers. We sort of…” He looks up at the ceiling’s gorgeous maths. “Well, we emptied the first two markers, and apparently you can’t just make more of it out of nothing because of something about the effort involved for this sort of thing, and I really…at this point I’m just going with it. You’ve met Crowley, right? Cranky bastard, looks like a ginger clone of you?”

The Doctor nods while Rose gives her a curious look. Rose really wants an explanation for that statement, but sort of like the black hole thing, the whole of it has to wait. “Yeah, and the ginger part is _really unfair_.”

Jack grins at her. “Gotta say, the ginger would have been hot. Be really quiet and follow me into the back room, here. I need to introduce you to Crowley’s brother, but he and Adam are both conked out on the couches.”

“Who’s Adam?” the Doctor asks, but she does keep her voice down as they follow Jack into a darker space. A fire is burning in the hearth, just a bit too warm instead of stifling. It’s a nice, cozy space that reminds her a bit of the TARDIS’s library, wonderful furniture to sit on for hours of reading, and yet more books lining the walls.

“This is Adam,” Jack murmurs, pointing to a blond-haired boy who is curled up into a ball on the sofa to their left. His lips are slightly parted in sleep, like a child who’s decided that they’re not about to wake up for anything short of an earthquake. “He’s a sort-of Celestial.”

The Doctor hopes they can avoid any earthquakes. London’s probably had enough of those. “Sort of Celestial?”

Is that what she is, then? A Gallifreyan sort-of Celestial?

“I don’t know the story behind that, either, but apparently he’s close enough.” Jack directs the Doctor’s attention to the other person sleeping in the room. “And this is Israfil.”

Even beneath a blanket, it’s obvious that he’s long-limbed and pale, that his features are a good solid match for her tenth face—bit less pronounced on the nose, though—and his hair is starkly ginger even in the firelight. His hair isn’t an uncombed mess like Crowley’s had been, but long strands of perfect ringlets.

The third Celestial (third!) also looks a bit like they were recently part of a pub crawl that lasted a few weeks too many.

“Oh, wow.” Rose sounds shocked. “He really, _really_ looks just like you! What’s going on with that?”

“Uh, not sure.” That’s a blatant lie, but it’s going to stay that way for as long as the Doctor can get away with it. “Crowley didn’t mention he had a twin,” she observes quietly. “Or wait, we’re not dealing with clones, are we?”

“No clones; they’re really twins. There is also some weird backstory there, but Mickey, Martha, and myself only got here earlier this afternoon, so we don’t know it yet,” Jack explains. “Though, I have a feeling that back when you met Crowley, Israfil wasn’t in the picture. When was that, by the way?”

“1020 BC, but that was only about three hours ago for me. Probably less than that, really,” the Doctor admits, and Jack laughs. The sound is loud enough to make Adam roll over in an offended, child-like huff, but Israfil doesn’t stir.

Then the shop’s front door bell jingles as people come in. Martha’s voice is raised as she announces, “We’ve returned with enough chalk markers to paint the walls!”

“We’re all but doing that as it is, so good,” Aziraphale responds, and Mickey laughs.

Rose’s entire face lights up. “Mickey!” she gasps, and runs off to greet him. The resulting shouting from the front of the shop makes the boy, Adam, snag a pillow and cover his face with it without even bothering to wake up.

Jack puts his hand on the Doctor’s shoulder. She looks up at him—oh, that is _also_ not fair!—as he gives her a somber look. “While they’re busy, you need to take a walk upstairs. There are two people up there who really want to see you. Granted, one of them wants to slap you, but probably just one time.”

The Doctor feels her eyes widen. “Donna?”

“Yeah—hey, it’s okay.” Jack immediately pulls her into another hug before the Doctor realizes her stupid feelings are happening again, her lip trembling. “She’s okay,” Jack says. “I promise. Israfil and Crowley are healers. I don’t know how it works for them, or what they did, but she’s not a walking time-bomb anymore.”

“Okay. Yeah. Right.” The Doctor steps back and gives herself a brief shake. “How do you thank two Celestial healers for fixing your blunder?”

“Words usually work just fine,” Israfil slurs from the couch. The Doctor feels an almost nauseating jolt at the sound of his voice, but the way he speaks isn’t the same as Crowley, or her old face. It sounds like Israfil is putting a lot more effort into pronunciation, whereas s/he’d just sort of gone with the longer drawl. It’d been fun.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you,” the Doctor whispers guiltily.

“I didn’t think you’d be budging for the rest of the night,” Jack says.

“Ugh. No,” Israfil replies without opening his eyes. “I need to be awake for the Summoning, anyway. Fuck, but I want a coffee.”

Jack smirks. “Coffee’s doable, but you’re staying put until I come back with it. Doc, you’re going upstairs, or I’ll carry you up there.”

“Don’t you dare,” the Doctor retorts, but there is a teasing light in his eyes that tells her Jack mostly doesn’t mean it. “I can walk. I’m going! I’ll even put my face into prime slapping position.”

“You people are bloody weirdos,” Israfil mutters. When the Doctor glances down again, he’s sat up a bit and opened his eyes, which appear to be blue and entirely human-looking.

“You’re identical twins, but genetics kicked in awkwardly on the eye color, then?” the Doctor asks curiously.

Israfil’s expressions are not like hers used to be with that face, which is a complete relief. He takes a moment to rub his eyes and then shakes his head. “No, Crowley has them, too. He’s just accustomed to the gold. Besides.” Israfil blinks a few times; his eyes stay blue, but the round pupil becomes a black vertical stripe which rapidly expands to let in more light. “It’s a bit useful.”

The Doctor grins. “That is so brilliant. I love it. Excuse me, I have to go get face-slapped now, but it’s very nice to meet you.”

The Celestial seems amused by that. “She’s already slapped Crowley twice, so I’m sure she’s had time to warm up to the idea.”

“Why’d she do that?”

Israfil smiles. “A distinctive haircut and unfortunate timing.”

Halfway up the stairs, the Doctor thinks, _I have a dad and an uncle_, and has to take a moment not to let out a squeak of excitement that she wouldn’t be able to explain. She has old friends about who don’t seem to be all that angry, Rose, a Fam, _and_ a family, even if she’s not sure how the family part is going to go. With the mystery and that Samael bloke (whoever he is) also waiting in the wings, this _really_ is shaping up to be the best sort of day.

The upstairs has a door that opens into a small, cozy flat. Odd; on the outside, the building is four storeys tall, but the Doctor knows that this is as high as it goes. It makes her wonder why. That Celestial with the short hair loved books; why not use the space? Or more accurately, why the illusion of having more space?

_To fit in_, the Doctor thinks idly, remembering the building’s construction date. One storey above the ground floor would look all right for 1604, but three stories built above—that wasn’t quite yet the norm, not for this part of London. Now it was perfectly normal.

The flat doesn’t feel like it’s seen much use until recently. She always knows when someone really lives in a place just by the feel of how things in it are treasured. This is affection. Downstairs had been love.

Two of the doors are closed, but one is open, with a soft yellow reading lamp illuminating the inside. The Doctor goes there, first, tapping her hand on the open door even as she notices that this room doesn’t fit the rest of the flat in the slightest. It’s the wrong style, wrong build, wrong century—and it’s loved.

“Come in, then. Don’t linger at the door. S’not like I’m not decent or anything, just abed.”

The Doctor swallows and then peers around the corner of the door. Wilfred Mott is sitting in a hospital bed, though he seems more tired than ill. There are so many more lines on his face, but his eyes are still blue and bright.

“Hi, Wilf.”

Wilf looks at her for a moment without a bit of recognition. Then his expression brightens into so much joy that the Doctor nearly starts weeping again. Again with the Feelings Everywhere! “The others showed me that video what was up on the internet. Knew it was you. Hello, Doctor.”

The Doctor walks into the room, trying to be casual, trying not to let on that she’d very much like to smother this man in a hug and not let go for a year. “You look lively, as usual.”

“Feelin’ a lot more lively,” Wilf admits, patting the bed to indicate the chair next to it. The Doctor hesitates before sitting, feeling twitchy and out of sorts, like she’s done something wrong. “Truth is, I’m pretty sure those healer blokes did something that Donna’s not telling me about, but I don’t mind. I’m ninety-one years old, but I wasn’t ready to be off just yet.”

The Doctor tilts her head. “Maybe they did. There’s a bit of Time Lord energy floating about in you. That’ll give you a few more years, at least.”

Wilf just nods, the joy turning to sadness. “I’m still so, so sorry.”

“What? What for? I’m the one who’s been a complete arse, not even turning up to say hello.”

Wilf sighs and takes her hand. “For the radiation poisoning. Twern’t no way to go.”

“No, don’t you even. Absolutely not. I’d do it again in a heartbeat, and never regret it.”

Wilf nods a bit, tears gathering at the corners of his eyes. “I always thought that was why we didn’t see you about anymore. That it just…what with everything that happened, that it just hurt too much.”

“Oh, no, don’t—I’ve already cried three times today and it’s getting to be such a bother,” the Doctor sniffs and then scowls. “Bugger!”

Wilf pats her hand. “I was right, wasn’t I?”

“Yeah, that’s part of it.” This time she remembers the handkerchief, which still smells a bit like her mum. That almost makes it worse. “Sorry.”

“That’s all right. You’re here now, right when we needed you. Though I imagine that bit of a reset in 1996 was your doing, too.”

The Doctor lowers the handkerchief in surprise. “You can remember that? No one remembers that!” Rebooting the universe had been madness, even if it was the right sort of madness, but it meant so much had been lost. All the invasions, all the human memories of aliens being real. The joy and the terror, all of it. “That’s also sorta why I didn’t visit, either. Didn’t think there’d be much point.”

“Everyone who traveled in your ship can remember it.” Wilf’s lips turn up in a smile that is a bit justifiably smug. “Didn’t think o’ that part, did you?”

“No, because I’m an idiot with a box,” the Doctor replies. “But—what about Donna? Did the block hold up all right?”

“Yeah, she didn’t notice,” Wilf admits. “I was glad for it. Bit lonely, suddenly being the only bloke about who could remember all of those amazing things, but I’d rather that than anything bad happening to her.”

“Course, I totally remember it now, sunshine,” Donna says from behind her.

The Doctor jerks around in her chair to find Donna standing there, leaning against the open doorway, wearing a dark blue blouse and black trousers. “Donna?”

“Oh, you went and took the cute route, didn’t you?” Donna smiles. “I like the hair.”

“Yes, but I’m still not ginger!” the Doctor protests, standing up. Then she squares her shoulders, marches over to Donna, and presents the side of her face while squeezing her eyes shut.

Donna doesn’t slap her. She _hugs_ the Doctor instead, which is so baffling that her ears ring before she catches up on the lack of slapping. “I can’t call you Spaceboy anymore. How unfair is that?”

“Spacegirl works,” the Doctor suggests. Stupid eyes and the tears and the leaking! “I don’t really mind.”

Donna leans back and rests her hands on the Doctor’s shoulders, staring into her eyes. “Oh. Oh, there you are. Your eyes are still the same, did you know that?”

The Doctor blinks a few times. “They aren’t. Really? They are?”

“Oh, yeah. Not _exactly_ the same color brown, but there’s that same bit of madness lurking about.” Donna tilts her head. “Maybe a bit less mad now, though. You don’t look like you want to burn down the world anymore.”

The Doctor shakes her head. “I never wanted to burn down the world. I like the world. I just wanted to burn down _me._”

Donna rolls her eyes. “You bleedin’ idiot.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that a lot in the last two thousand years. It was true an awful lot of the time, too.”

“Two thousand years?” Wilf asks in shock. 

The Doctor turns around with an apologetic look. “Yeah, things just sort of…happened. Snowballed, right? Lots of intrigue, lots of nosey buggers wantin’ to know my name even though it was none of their business.” She hesitates, because this might well get her slapped. “Uh, Donna? I really, really have to know how the Celestial healer types fixed the meta-crisis. Can I look? Just look? Only look. Promise. Cross both hearts. Nothing else.”

Donna gives her a suspicious stare that the Doctor rightly deserves. “Nothing else.”

“Absolutely not,” the Doctor swears.

“Fine.” Donna closes her eyes. “But if I feel you proddin’ at things, I’ll skip the slapping and break something over your head.”

“That’s probably a good idea.” The Doctor lifts her hands to gently rest her fingers along Donna’s temples. “Oooooh!” she says at once, smiling. “They removed the entirety of the Time Lord consciousness that was trying to do the overwriting! That’s amazing—that’s annoying. I can’t do that. How did they do that?”

“Doctor,” Donna huffs.

“Okay, fine.” She tilts her head. “You’re still all zingy with Time Lord energy. Does rather explain why you’ve not aged so much. You look good. Fantastic, even!”

“Doctor!”

“Okay!” The Doctor drops her hands and shrugs. “I’m a curious bugger and that hasn’t changed a bit. But they’re right. You’re beyond fine. Probably you didn’t want to know that much about spatial mathematics, but maybe it’ll be useful.”

Donna nods. “It has been, yeah. I’ve been helping out with the portal thing downstairs. Keep trying to carry the wrong digit, but otherwise it’s not so bad. Now,” Donna jabs a finger into the Doctor’s sternum, “you get to tell me something that _you’ve_ been up to!”

The Doctor thinks about it for a moment before she brightens. “I was married for a time. Okay, more like I got married six times in all of that, but five of them were drunken mistakes, so they don’t count.”

Donna starts laughing. “Six times. Which one meant anything?”

“Remember the Library? Professor River Song?”

Donna lets out a squeal and hugs her again, all but lifting the Doctor from the ground. Donna’s taller than she is! The Doctor is so bloody short, this is awful. “I’m glad that got sorted out. Was it…I mean…?”

“All of it was backwards.” Suddenly all that grief is right back in her hearts. It probably wasn’t much fair that Rose is first in her heart and mind, and will probably the very last, but River had been so dear to her. The Doctor had loved her so, so much. “Her ending was my beginning, and so much of it was completely out of order. That was hard. Worth it, but so very hard.”

“You could just go back to the Library and see her,” Donna says.

“Nope, can’t. I mean, the data transfer held up for a few centuries, but…” The Doctor smiles. “Nothing lasts forever. Not even the universe.”

* * * *

They leave Wilf upstairs, to Wilf’s immediate, grousing protests. “Absolutely not,” Donna insists. “You’re knackered, and falling on your face won’t help at all.” She holds up her mobile long enough to wiggle it about. “I’ll take bloody video of the portal bit, all right? Then you can watch it _after_ you get some sleep. Got me, Granddad?”

“Harridan,” Wilf protests, but smiles anyway. “You two be careful.”

The Doctor lets Donna turn around before she swiftly leans over and kisses Wilf’s cheek. “I’d still be proud, y’know,” she whispers. “If you were my dad.”

Wilf grips her hand. “You found something out about that bit, did you?”

The Doctor grins. “Yeah. Tell you when I can.” Then she follows Donna back down the stairs.

Adam is still on the sofa, one of his sneaker-clad feet shoved out from beneath the blanket, but still out. Israfil’s sofa has been abandoned, and the fire is burning low. “Bet from the noise that everyone’s out in the shop proper,” Donna says.

They step out into the brighter light of the shop together, where Martha is giving Mickey and Rose’s loud reunion a tolerant look. “This is not bloody fair,” Mickey is saying. “Look at you, not aging a bloody day, and then there’s me. I’ve got _grey hair_, Rose. Me!”

Rose grins. “It makes you look dignified.”

Mickey pauses. “Does it really?”

“Nah,” Rose replies, and ducks away with Mickey mock-swings at her. The Doctor’s hearts hurt again, because how many times had she seen the same thing? It was all so long ago, and yet it was just a blip, a moment, and God, but those moments are so very, very important.

“You think you’re so funny,” Mickey grumbles. “You’re not.”

“I am very funny—Donna!” Rose exclaims, and rushes over to greet the other woman. “You look grand!”

The Doctor takes a moment to reflect that the gender swap with this last regeneration had really convenient timing. She’s not nearly as bothered by all the hugging as some of her selves had been. She’d been so bloody standoffish!

Mickey raises both hands at the Doctor’s approach in blatant appraisal. “You know you never mentioned this gender-swapping was a thing your lot did, right?”

“Well, I didn’t think it would ever happen to me. Usually you’ve got to give yourself a good nudge for those results,” the Doctor explains, smiling. “How are you, Rickey?”

“I hate you,” Mickey says flatly, and then starts laughing when he hugs her. “I did miss your arse, and even you _being_ an arse.”

“Missed you, too. Honestly and truly.”

Then she’s being hugged by Martha, who embraces the Doctor in silence. There is so much lurking in Martha’s thoughts: frustration and love, worry and delight, confusion and little bits of thought exercises about faith and reality.

“It’s not that bad,” the Doctor says, because she feels like she has to.

“I’m really not doing so well with words today. I knew you’d pick up on what I wanted to say,” Martha replies, half-smiling as she steps back. “But I did miss you. Oh, and thanks for the save from that cranky Sontaran.”

The Doctor has to think about that before the memory pops up. “Oh, yeah! You two in the definitely-not-UNIT gear trying to take care of a walking twit with a gun. No problem, that!”

“I’d just quit UNIT,” Martha admits, “right after the debacle with the Osterhagan Key. I went freelance from them instead of direct employment so I could turn them down for things that didn’t seem to be on the level. It meant I got to spend half my time running a medical practice—finally!”

The Doctor grins. “I’m so glad! Oh, I haven’t done the medical bit in a while. I’m probably not nearly as up to date on it as I should be.”

“You also weren’t meant to be ignoring my phone calls, buster,” Martha adds.

“If we’re going to start in on that, then fair’s fair: you didn’t even invite me to your wedding!”

Mickey sighs and growls under his breath. “That damned UNIT courier! He swore up and down and bloody sideways that the message had been delivered!”

The Doctor blows out a long sigh. “Oh, I can’t _wait_ to ask Kate about what happened there. Well, er, I’m sorry, congratulations, and do you have kids?”

It’s nearly a perfect tie as to which of them whips out the pictures fastest. There are two: a five-year-old named after Mickey’s grandmother, Rita, and a seven-year-old named Hope. “They’re darling girls,” the Doctor coos, making some truly embarrassing noises. “Ugh, right. I have an ovary now, and it’s _noisy!_ It’s not even that time of year!”

Martha puts the photo of her girls away and glares at her. “Just once a year?”

The Doctor leans back in surprise. “Well, yeah. Time Lord, long-lived species—oh. Right. Humans. Once a month. Please do not kill me.” She thinks about it. “Oh, I’d really better go get that implant. I can get pregnant now! I don’t want to be pregnant right now! Pregnant is complicated!”

Rose and Donna both start giggling at her. “Do you have any idea how difficult it was to explain to doctors in my dad’s reality how to _find_ my implant, much less how to remove it?” Rose asks, looking far too amused by the Doctor’s sudden realization of _biology is awkward_. “That’s what I get for getting a human implant that’s a few thousand years ahead of the curve!”

“I mean, beyond the obvious, why did you need the implant, anyway?” Martha asks.

The Doctor feels her face heat up. By several degrees.

Rose snorts. “You might want to ask the one who’s busy turning colors.”

“Noooooo, don’t be evil about it!” the Doctor moans, yanking up her coat’s hood to hide beneath it.

“Wait. Wait, you two were really—” Mickey breaks off in disbelief. “But—how!”

“Well, it’s not like humans and Time Lords are an incompatible species,” Rose continues in a voice that’s too bland not to be mischief.

“Stoooooooooooooooooop!” the Doctor begs, pulling her hood further forward. “No, don’t do the thing!”

Rose is laughing at her and the Doctor knows it. “Time Lords are kind of, uhm, prudish about this sort of thing. Unless it’s in private, ya know?”

The Doctor slumps over and rolls onto her back, staring up at the ceiling while her entire face burns in embarrassment. “You’re terrible!”

“This? This is _hilarious_,” Donna cackles.

“No, this is—I _traveled_ in that box!” Mickey yells. “I still don’t want to know these things!”

Jack leans over and glances down at the Doctor, one eyebrow quirked, huge grin on his face. “Oh, so I see how it is.”

“Hey!” The Doctor points at Rose. “At least she bought me chips! You never even bought me a drink!”

“You’re still high-maintenance, then,” Jack says, laughing. “You know, you used to be able to flirt without turning colors.”

“That was flirting! This is totally different—” The Doctor stares up at the ceiling, teasing forgotten. Centered above them is the point of origin, the three circles that tell the constructed teleport where to snatch up the one being teleported. “Where did those coordinates come from?”

Jack’s eyes narrow. “Aziraphale! We need that scroll!”

Aziraphale has the scroll in one hand and a chalk marker in the other when he rounds the corner. “What is it?”

“Scroll, gimme the scroll,” the Doctor demands, holding out her hands. “I need to read it.”

Aziraphale looks hesitant, but she doesn’t blame him. People are usually a bit confused when she suddenly pounces on a problem. “Why?”

“Because the origin points are wrong.”


	11. E.T.A.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trying to out-trick the Trickster who no longer has to pretend to play by someone else's rules isn't really a great idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been sick all week--the sort of sick that means you just stare at the wall for hours and don't even realize it's been hours because you're possibly hallucinating. Sorry about the wait. I had to wait for some of the hallucinating to wear off to be able to finish the chapter. <3
> 
> (Also, hadn't planned for the Doctor to run POV for two chapters in a row but she insisted. Rightly so, even.)

Aziraphale takes a deep, steadying breath. “How do you know?”

“Time Lord,” the Doctor says, still reading the ceiling. “I know my stuff, those are wrong. They’re really close, but they’re wrong. It’s not going to work. Part of the equation is missing if you’re trying to call someone back from another dimensional plane.”

Aziraphale frowns and then hands over the scroll. “It begins here, and continues down.” The Doctor orients the paper properly, her eyes flying over the text and numbers as she rapidly slides it through her fingers. “You can read it that quickly?”

“Time Lord,” the Doctor repeats, trying not to roll her eyes. “I have all of time and space in my head. This is just time and space written down. Also, I’m really, really clever.”

“She is,” Jack assures Aziraphale, who makes a vague sound of baffled agreement.

“Hah!” The Doctor grins when she finds it. “There’s another set of Cartesian coordinates in this to account for travel from one plane of existence to another, which makes the cylindrical coordinates a bloody mess—oh, you sly bugger. You sly, sly bugger. Why were you so busy trying to pretend like you weren’t smart? This is _brilliant_.”

“What did my brother do now?” Israfil asks. She has no idea when he turned up, absorbed in the scroll as she was.

“Crossword puzzle. Except not, because he hid rubbish in here, too.” The Doctor glances up at Israfil, who looks a bit better. He’s easier to see in full lighting, wearing a blue button-down shirt, denims, and brown lace-up boots.

Pale and perfectly ginger. Her literal twisted genetics are bastards. She is going to decry this as unfair until the end of bloody time.

Israfil is also holding a dark wooden staff in one hand with symbols that the Doctor finds maddeningly familiar, and also untranslatable. It has two serpents on it, like a wingless caduceus.

“If Crowley wrote this out, how did you lot get hold of it?” the Doctor asks.

Israfil grants her a faint smile. “We’re twins. That link can’t be blocked, even by that sort of distance. I acquired the scrollwork by performing what the others are calling auto-writing.”

“Psychic link. Those are dead useful,” the Doctor notes, and then digs around in her pockets until she finds a purple marker. “It’s not in code or anything, but he was definitely worried about someone overhearing this particular conversation. Look, right here.” She writes _Origin Point_ along the top of the scroll, using arrows to point to the first column, the middle column, and the last one. “The real origin points don’t run across, though the ones in the horizontal groups are close enough to _look_ right until you really start paying attention. These three full vertical lines, top to bottom, are what you really need. The first row is the extra-dimensional location. The second is his specific position within that location. The third is the _time_ this needs to be activated, which…hoo. Okay. Nine minutes. I can work with nine minutes. If I can save a planet with five seconds to spare, I can fix this in nine minutes.”

“I don’t like ticking countdown timers,” Mickey says bluntly. “Too many ruddy bombs.”

“Nor I. Oh, dear,” Aziraphale mutters.

The Doctor pushes the unrolled scroll along the floor and then circles four different sections along the horizontal. “These here. These are the proper geodesic orientation points for getting _here_, set at magnetic north, east, west, and south.” She crosses through eight lines, two of each, that are sitting at the end of each orientation point. “If these parts are already written out, that was wrong. The rest was just extra gibberish, filler, so eavesdroppers wouldn’t understand it.”

“_Bugger_,” Aziraphale declares in frustration. “Crowley, you—I’ve been trying to figure that out that mess for the last twenty minutes!”

The Doctor looks up at the ceiling, and then around at the walls, before she picks up the scroll and dashes over to look at the arrival point on the floor, the scroll trailing along behind her. “Okay, that part’s accurate. Oh, you used a bit of slyness yourself to make certain that the now on _this_ side wouldn’t matter. Love it, lovely stuff.”

She steps into the center of the marked arrival circle and closes her eyes. Yes, the ceiling is clambering at her, announcing its incorrectness. Fixing the Earth’s geodesic orientation points by getting rid of the gibberish will take care of part of the directional problem. The matter conversion built in—not sure why that’s needed, but she can work with that—is correct but for a few missing lines, but something is still sour and out of place beyond that. She decides it’ll be easier to find that problem once the rest of this is done.

The Doctor looks up at the ceiling, which is quite high. “I need a ladder.”

“We don’t have one. You’re going to have to stand on my shoulders,” Jack says, “while I stand on one of the shelves and hope we don’t have an incident.”

“Is that what we’re calling falling down in a completely embarrassing manner now?”

“Sure, why not?”

The Doctor lays out the scroll again first, circling two lines that aren’t anywhere near each other. “These are the last two missing pieces of the matter translation,” she says, giving it back to Aziraphale. “After that, there’s something else not quite right, but we have to narrow it down.”

“That can be finished promptly. Do you need the scroll for reference?” Aziraphale asks as the Doctor awkwardly uses a chair and a boost from Jack to climb up onto the stack nearest the center of the ceiling. The stack wobbles a bit when Jack joins her, but that’s not going to be nearly as entertaining as standing on his shoulders.

“Nope, already have it all memorized. You lot keep it, get the other stuff fixed up.” The Doctor makes a face and clambers aboard Jack’s back before he stands up.

Jack sounds a bit choked. “You’re clinging.”

“Sorry!” The Doctor loosens her grip, and once Jack has his balance, she carefully hauls herself forward. Then, oh so ridiculously slowly, she stands up until she’s at her full height. “I realized today that I don’t like being short. Or not being telekinetic. That would be so much easier.”

“Afraid of heights, Doc? That’s new,” Jack says as Martha tosses up one of the chalk markers. The Doctor catches it with only a bit of a wobble and nods. The marker is followed by a standard chalkboard eraser that’s been dampened to wipe away the old chalk markings.

“Yeah, maybe a bit,” she replies. “See, right after I regenerated, I sort of fell out of the TARDIS from high in the atmosphere and crashed through the roof of a train in Sheffield.”

Jack whistles. “Good timing on that mid-regeneration fall, or you’d have skipped out on being a cute blonde.”

“Behave.” The Doctor smiles and starts erasing the incorrect coordinates while trying to keep the chalked circles intact. It’s not a perfect job; she’ll probably have to make certain all the lines are connected again before she hops down from here. “Definitely not my best entrance, but I met some good people that way.”

“Torchwood types of people?” Jack asks in blatant supplication.

“Depends on what you lot are doing with Torchwood these days. It’s not like I’ve forgotten Canary Wharf ever happened.”

Jack snorts in derision. “That was Yvonne Hart, and you know it. I started shifting Torchwood’s focus the moment I had control of Torchwood Three. You were just too cranky at the time to listen.”

“Oh?” The Doctor starts writing out the coordinates for time inside the innermost circle. Cranky is probably putting it mildly. She’d been in what Yas calls a _mood_. “What’s the focus now, then?”

“Well, protecting the Earth is still a priority. You’re not always around, you know. But we’re also focusing on granting asylum to aliens who need it. It’s took some work, but we have a real immigration system set up now that’s run by Torchwood, including tourist visas. With _rules_ attached,” Jack adds at the end in an annoyed tone. “Violate the rules, you go home on the first ship with an atmosphere that comes floating by. Otherwise? We help when we can, kick ass when we can’t, and make certain the human population stays ignorant about their new neighbors, or at least treats them decently. We’ve been experimenting a bit with the latter in Cardiff, but Cardiff is so used to weirdness that they’re really not fazed by much of anything. Things are going well enough that Torchwood One is up and running again, but it’s in Bethnal Green, not out at the Wharf. Mickey and Martha are fronting it, so I know it’s in good hands.”

“No more Retconning, then?” the Doctor asks curiously, starting on the second circle, the complete specifics on exact location. It’s that other dimensional plane’s equivalent of geodesic coordinates, but they almost make her head hurt, they’re so odd.

“Not if I can help it,” Jack answers. “It’s not a foolproof system, anyway. Besides, I kind of figured out recently that I Retconned _myself_ before I met you. It was necessary, but it was still a stupid thing to do.”

“Why’s that?”

“Doing that to myself saved my ass, but I was a lot more focused on trying to escape the consequences of what I did while working for the Time Agency,” Jack says bluntly. “I was a complete disaster when I was Javic, Doc. I didn’t like what I’d gotten into, and I didn’t know how to get out of it. Worse, I was surrounded by co-workers who enjoyed that shit. Granted, if I hadn’t used the Retcon, the Agency would have tried to get me back. Without the training and knowledge in my head? They didn’t care anymore.”

The Doctor gives the chalk marker a good shake and starts writing the dimensional coordinates in the outermost origin circle. “Javic Thane. I was never really sure if I had it right, and you were trying so hard to be better. I didn’t want to push. I’m sorry.”

Jack tilts his head up, prompting the Doctor to glance down at him. “For lying about the fixed-point-in-time thing, too?”

The Doctor sighs and resumes writing. “Yeah. That, too.”

“Why did you lie?”

She has to think about how to answer that one. She’s so, so tired of lying, like it’s a solution instead of just making more problems for herself. So far, except for the occasional necessary bit of subterfuge (which she’s rather bad at), she’s managed to avoid the big, disappointing lies.

Okay, so she’s blurted out _one_ big lie today, but to be fair, she panicked.

“I don’t like it when I muck things up,” the Doctor admits. “And Jack, what happened on the Game Station with you and Rose? That was…I really messed up, and I couldn’t fix it. Not for either of you. I mean, I saved Rose’s life before what she’d done could kill her, but it changed her. It changed her forever. She saved your life, and it changed you forever, too. Just was on a different scale, is all.”

Jack’s voice is very soft when he speaks again. “So, look. Mickey and Martha have a history with me at this point, and I can buy the three of us being here because I’m the one who invited them in. Donna’s the one who called _me_. But the timing for Rose? It feels like a setup, Doc.”

“I know.” The Doctor studies her work and makes certain all the circles are intact. She double-checks the geodesic lines for the compass points, but the top is correct; it must be the bottom section on the floor that held the gibberish. She looks down long enough to see that Aziraphale erased everything of the northern line from the floor and part of the wall and is starting again, this time making the symbols bigger so they’ll meet with the arrival circles properly. The maths will meet up with what the others draw in from the ground up, and once it’s linked together, they’re that much closer to success.

“Not sure what sort of setup, but it really is her. It’s really _me_, for that matter.” The Doctor simplifies things by jumping down from Jack’s shoulders instead of any more awkward clambering. “We’ll figure it out, though.”

By the time the others are done adding the two new lines, they have three minutes to go, and there is still a sour tone to the portal. “Oh, where are you,” the Doctor mutters, hopping down to the floor. It’s somewhere down here, something out of place—there. “Someone brushed against one of the cardinal geodesic lines behind the stacks before they dried!” she shouts, carefully wiping away the blurred equations and writing the correct numbers back into place. “Be more careful, you lot!”

“That feels right,” Aziraphale says the moment she’s done.

“Are we certain this time?” Israfil sounds wary. “I’m very much out of practice at reading this.”

The Doctor pulls her stethoscope from her coat pocket, puts them on, and then rests the drum directly against one of the equation lines. A moment later, she’s grinning. “That’s a musical sound! It’s perfect!”

Aziraphale looks relieved when she stands up and puts her stethoscope away. “Thank you, my dear.”

The Doctor shrugs. “It’s what I do. What’s the power source?”

Israfil is standing a few paces away from the arrival point, staff held loosely in his right hand. “Me. I need to be right here.”

Oh, that’ll not do at all. “Look, I get the whole Celestial power myth bit, but even I can tell that you’re knackered. If you try to do this right now, you’re going to fall on your face before it’s half done,” the Doctor says bluntly. “Give me your hand.”

“You don’t have the means to—”

“Is everyone from your species this stubborn?” The Doctor holds out her hand, wriggling her fingers. “Come on, we’re running out of time!”

Israfil gives her a very uncertain look before he holds out his left hand. She grasps it before he can get nervy about things. “You’re not that different from a human,” she says, “and neither am I.”

The Doctor closes her eyes and focuses on her inner self, that near-unfathomable well of energy that makes a Time Lord what they are. Then she grabs just the right amount and lets that energy flow into Israfil’s skin. “There. That’ll keep you from doing the faceplanting bit.”

Israfil is staring at her again, but in something a lot closer to horrified recognition. Oh, boy. “Who the _hell_ are you?” he hisses under his breath.

“The Doctor,” she responds with a cheeky smile.

“Not the title you bear. Your _name,_” he insists.

The Doctor shakes her head. “No one gets my name. Not ever. It’s not safe.”

“A secret,” Israfil murmurs. It sounds like realization, or maybe recognition.

“Yep!”

Aziraphale comes rushing out, carrying a literal sword. “One minute, thirty seconds,” he says after consulting the pocket watch held open in his other hand. “I’ll be right over here, just in case. Everyone else, into the back of the shop—oh, fine, then at least get away from the portal!” he adds in exasperation when nobody vacates. The boy, Adam, woke up at some point, and is rubbing his eyes with both hands as he takes in what’s going on. Donna has her mobile out to film it all, just like she promised Wilf.

The Doctor looks at the staff Israfil is holding once more. “I’ve seen symbols like those before, but the ones are your staff are graceful. What I saw was less complicated, rougher around the edges.”

“You would have been seeing the alphabet as it was being corrupted, then,” Israfil says. “You should really back up. This is going to be loud; I’d hate to pierce your eardrums by accident.”

“Sure, I’ll do that. I was just wondering if the staff really fits the theme, using a messenger’s symbol instead of the Rod of Asclepius,” the Doctor comments.

Israfil turns his head to glance down at her. There; that’s the bloody familiar smug expression her old face was so good at! “Why is that?”

“Because Israfil is Arabic for Raphael.” It didn’t take her long to decide that if Celestials exist, and spend this much time involved in Earth’s affairs, then all of those biblical names had to come from _somewhere_.

Israfil shakes his head. “I don’t go by that name here. It makes things too complicated. As to the staff? What Earth calls the Rod of Asclepius came first, the symbol of healing—which I assume is the point you were trying to make.” The Doctor nods, completely intrigued. “It was only a single serpent at first. If my brother and I were working at healing others, the staff was his favorite place to lurk, hiding in plain sight.”

The Doctor grins. Even after spending a mere thirty minutes in Crowley’s company, she knows he would have enjoyed that. “It’s not just the eyes. It’s full-fledged shape-shifting, then.”

“Forty-five seconds, please _move_!” Aziraphale orders the Doctor, but she’s not done listening.

“It’s not a common trait for Celestials. We’re born to be what and who we are.” Israfil’s voice turns soft and pained. “My brother popularized the caduceus after he Fell. He couldn’t remember me, but the Rod of Asclepius was wrong to him. It wasn’t right in his mind unless there were two serpents mirroring each other. Of course, then the Greeks had to go and ruin it by adding wings. Now: back away.”

The Doctor walks backwards, just outside the portal’s range, to join the others. Rose grabs her left hand; Jack grips her right.

“Do you know what’s going to happen?” Adam asks Jack.

“Nope!” Jack grins, reaching out to take Adam’s hand, too. “That’s part of the fun.”

“You guys are weird.”

The Doctor is not ashamed to admit that she jumps when Israfil unfurls a pair of wings. One blink and he doesn’t have them; another blink and he does.

“Holy God,” Martha whispers.

“Celestial!” the Doctor insists, but her eyes are following Israfil’s wings. The feathers are gorgeous, like molten gold, and she can tell that outspread, they’re more than large enough to support someone of his height and mass. It’s the way all of his feather tips look to have been dipped in black ink that she _really_ loves. It’s such a wonderful bit of character.

“Now, Israfil,” Aziraphale says.

Israfil strikes the outermost arrival circle with the darkened staff and opens his mouth. What comes out is so high-pitched that the Doctor has to resist the urge to put her hands over her ears. The others don’t fare as well, though Adam isn’t bothered in the slightest.

Unlike the annoyingly untranslatable writing on Israfil’s staff, the Doctor can understand this language. Somewhere, when Time Lords were young and the TARDIS’s translation circuit already existed, a Celestial had been close enough for the language to be recorded.

_Zaherael_, the Doctor thinks as Israfil says the name for the second time. That’s what Crowley couldn’t recall, the name he said he couldn’t remember before the invention of politics. The Doctor thought maybe it was a joke at the time, but Falling—maybe that’s something literal. Maybe it was a transition from the dimensional plane that was home into another that was meant to be…well, punishment. That would be the biblical war in Heaven, though most of that was all in the Apocrypha—which she’d found far more entertaining to read, anyway. The religious translation doesn’t matter, though.

One side won. The other side lost everything. She knows exactly what that’s like.

The third shout is much louder. “Zaherael!”

The portal comes to life with another perfect chime of sound. The light that spreads outwards from those first circles, tracing along all of the mathematical lines, takes on a transcendent blue glow. _Zaherael_. Her mind fills in details even as she watches the bookshop brighten._ Zerachiel._ _Zahariel._ In the Apocrypha, he was the angel of healing, the fierce guardian of children, the one who held dominion over the Earth, but not to rule it. In the old days, dominion was the word dem. Earth was the archangel’s _home_.

It’s sort of funny, the way it went just as Israfil said the twins preferred. The angel Raphael is the one everyone remembers, the Celestial who shows up in the ancient Abrahamic religious texts like the Talmud and varying sorts of Apocrypha. He’s remembered after humans leave Earth and spread themselves out amongst the stars, his name recalled in several different religions that were never Abrahamic in the first place. His face is in so many paintings, though very few got the hair right. (None of them have the wings correct.) Raphael the Healer, with dominion over Heaven, the guide in the Book of Tobit who was supposedly ordered by God to help two people who’d both given up on life and prayed for death. Zaherael is mentioned only in Enoch, a barely registered name that might well have been someone’s forgotten footnotes.

_It wasn’t Israfil in the story of Tobit_, the Doctor thinks with a sudden grin of realization. Then the origination point of the portal chimes. A much deeper, sharper, unhappy tone registers the call from the arrival point.

The Doctor shades her eyes against the burst of energy right before it happens. There isn’t one person in the arrival zone, but two struggling bodies. One is a woman dressed in black fabric with pits for eyes and needle teeth—and Crowley, who is wrapped around her like a gangly-limbed python, using broken chains to keep her arms pinned to her sides. He has wings, too, dark and ragged ones hanging limply from his back.

“THAT’S YOUR FUCKING PLAN?” Israfil yells. “YOU FUCKING LUNATIC!”

“Are you kidding?” Donna shouts. “That’s a great plan! He made her bloody corporeal, you idiot!”

“Get _off_ of me!” the woman roars. She breaks one of the chains, grips Crowley’s arm, and flings him away with a terrifying amount of strength. He strikes the furniture clustered near the far wall and then lands on the floor.

The Doctor has good ears. That was two, probably three bones breaking at once.

“Bugger,” she mutters under her breath. She yanks free of Rose and Jack, skirts the portal, and runs straight to Crowley.

“Doctor—wait!” Jack yells, but if he thinks the Doctor is going to stop, he’s been out of the running game for too long. Blundering directly into trouble is what she’s best at.

Out of the corner of her eye, she notes that Aziraphale’s sword is now on fire. The Doctor hopes it’s supposed to be doing that.

The woman is hissing at Israfil, but his staff is now raised like it’s a weapon. Whoever Crowley’s new and very dangerous friend is, she looks to be as terrified of the staff as she is of the burning sword at her back. The Doctor decides that particular problem is being handled and drops to the floor next to Crowley. He’s lying in an awkward sprawl, resting partially on his side, head turned from the impact so that he’s facing the ceiling instead of the floor.

Before he can react, she bends down and starts babbling. “I’m an ally. Friend. Whatever.”

Crowley opens his eyes and stares at her. His hair is a lank, unwashed mess that falls to his chin, where it’s tangling with a beard that is trying to be both the darkness of his brows and the brilliant red of his hair at the same time. Very modern Goth. If Goth is still a thing, anyway. There are open wounds that look like claw marks running down his face, and several more on his bare feet and hands. That’s probably why his jacket and trousers are a bit of a mess, too. His eyes are the more human-like appearance she first saw a few hours ago, burnished gold and vertical pupils.

“Ally,” he whispers, like he’s tasting the word.

“I’m not going to hurt you. I just didn’t want you to move, because I think those were vertebrae you cracked when you hit this table. I’m the Doctor. Nice to meet you again.”

“Again.” Crowley swallows. “Don’t remember. Sorry. Course, right now, I don’t remember my own name, so don’t take it personally.”

The Doctor grins. “Nope, promise I won’t.” His wings really are a mess, but the feathers are beautiful, blackened bronze with gold tips. Sort of the opposite of Israfil’s, but not quite. Character; she loves it.

She looks up to find Madam Needle-Teeth still pinned between a staff and a sword, unable to escape from the arrival circles. Then the Doctor stares hard at the floor. “They changed it from an arrival point to a cage with just one alteration in the maths. I love it!”

“Good,” Crowley mutters. “What the hell are you idiots waiting for? Send her _upstairs_!”

“Upstairs?” Israfil asks in disbelief. He keeps his eyes on the woman, who really has too much of a thing for draping black cloth. Wardrobes are meant to have limits, even if they aren’t always sensible ones.

“Oh. Fuck.” Crowley grimaces. “Patterns. Come on. Why. Why upstairs?” Then his eyes widen.” Piece! She’s missing a piece of herself! It’s still out on a fucking battlefield somewhere!”

Aziraphale looks startled, but he doesn’t lower the flaming sword. The Doctor really wants to know how it’s burning like that, but priorities are annoying. “That would explain quite a bit.”

“It really does.” Israfil takes a step back and alters his grip on the staff. “Zaazenach.”

“Don’t _call_ me that!” she shrieks.

Israfil grins. “Do say hello to Mum for me.” He spins the staff around and then thrusts it _up_ in a sharp blow that catches Zaazenach in the chest. She quite literally flies upwards from the impact.

The Doctor stares a bit when the screaming woman disappears directly through the ceiling. “So…upstairs, literally,” she says. “You sent her to a different dimensional plane.”

He sent her to another dimensional plane without a teleport. Now she really, really, _really_ wants to be able to read that staff!

“Yeah. I need to make a phone call so they don’t just kill her.” Israfil dials a number and then looks very surprised when it connects at once. “Michael?”

With Zaazenach’s departure, the Doctor feels free to focus on Crowley without something going wrong the moment her back is turned. “You’re a mess, by the way.”

Crowley looks very unimpressed by that observation. “Thanks.”

“Sorry, I’m very rude, character flaw.” There are four binding cuffs on each of his arms, plus two that are…wrapped around the base of his wings. “Oh, that doesn’t look like any fun.” She reaches for the first cuff and then yanks her hand back when it stings her fingers. “Ow!”

Aziraphale is then next to her, the flaming sword extinguished and missing. “You have a hint of Celestial blood lurking in your body, and that is hell-forged iron.” He sighs when she gives him a prodding look. “It’s crafted to be toxic to Celestials, but not to demons,” he explains.

“Oh. Oh! You mean he isn’t one anymore?” The Doctor grins and nearly hugs them both. “I knew he didn’t like it! I told him so—and he really didn’t like me saying it, either—but I knew it!”

Aziraphale gives her a stunned look. “You recognized that in 1020 BC? Truly?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, it didn’t make him any less tetchy or anything, but it was sort of obvious!”

“_He_ is laying right bloody here,” Crowley mutters. “I think. Hi, angel.”

“Well, we’re off to a good start if you already remember that part,” Aziraphale says.

Crowley rolls his eyes. “I never forget that part!”

That makes Aziraphale smile before his expression falters. “Oh. Those fractures need to be healed, but I can’t—not with those chains in the way.”

“Lifting your hand, don’t bite me,” the Doctor warns Crowley, who is only vaguely irritated by that. She studies the cuff, noticing that the metal has no seam. The marks imprinted in the cuff are familiar. Corrupted Celestial alphabet. They’re mirrored in faint, charcoal-like patterns on his hands. She looks again and realizes that, beneath his strands of tangled hair, the same letters are written onto his face.

“I could try to remove them with the sword,” Aziraphale offers, also examining the cuffs. “But I truly worry I’d hurt you in doing so.”

“S’not like it’d be the first time,” Crowley says. “Probably, anyway.”

The Doctor pulls out her sonic. “Let’s try to avoid the sword, hey?” She scans the cuff closest to the hand she’s still holding and then holds up her sonic to interpret the readouts. “Oh, that’s not a pleasant pitch. I can get them off without swords and potential issues with fire—I really want to know how you did the bit with the burning sword, by the way—but it’ll make your ears ring. Mine too, to be honest.”

Israfil hangs up the phone and huffs in annoyance. “He’s in such a _mood_. What’s broken?”

“Two vertebrae. Possibly something else, not sure, still working on the cuffs.” The Doctor looks up and realizes they have an audience. “Might want to cover your ears again,” she tells Martha, Jack, Mickey, Rose, Donna, and Adam. “Not sure if you’ll register the pitch, but it’s going to be loud.”

Adam promptly stuffs his fingers in his years. “I’m so not taking chances if you’re warning my godparents.”

The Doctor shrugs when the others ignore her. If they all end up with a migraine from not listening, that will definitely not be her fault. “Ready?” she asks Crowley, who glares at her. “Taking that as a yes, then.” She braces herself, does her best to psychically muffle her ears, and starts using the sonic against the cuffs.

“Ow, ow, ow, ow,” she says under her breath, wincing. Crowley has his eyes squeezed shut against the noise; Israfil might be swearing in Celestial; Aziraphale has his hands over his ears and looks terribly cross. The cuffs are stubborn, but then the first one crumbles into bits of metal. Crowley’s bared skin is bright red and starting to blister in the cuff’s exact shape, like a bloody awful sunburn.

The cuffs on his wings, right against his back, are the worst. She has to increase the strength of her sonic, and it’s such a terrible whine of sound against her brain that she’s going to have her own sonic-induced migraine later.

Then they’re off, and Crowley all but melts into the floor in relief. “Thanks.” That is far less sarcastic, much more sincere.

“You’re welcome.” The Doctor pockets her sonic and then rubs at her ears, trying to rid herself of that irritating, low-pitched ringing.

Israfil kneels down next to the Doctor to look at Crowley. “Do you know who I am?”

Crowley considers it without lifting his face from the floor. “Yes-no.”

“Close enough.” Israfil reaches out with his right hand, his fingertips are already glowing with golden light. It’s almost like Time Lord energy, but not the same at all. “Hold still, idiot.”

“More familiar after that,” Crowley mutters, and then grits his teeth. “Oh, fuck! Fuck! What the fuck?”

“You never forget how to swear, either,” Aziraphale murmurs in apparent delight.

“What’s with the forgetting?” the Doctor asks while Israfil heals whatever else was broken. Then it’s onto the burns, and if she’s remembering her winged species types correctly, repairing some horrific strain on his wings. That doesn’t even yet include Crowley’s missing feathers.

She didn’t even know Celestials had wings. Stupid childhood myths. Thousands upon thousands of years of religious texts have all been far more useful.

“It’s…” Aziraphale sighs, as if he’s had to explain this more than once today already. “Literally, Hell is another plane of existence. It’s a dimension built for revenge, full of hatred that manifests in toxicity and—well, it’s a terrible place. Crowley once described it as…” He hesitates, frowning. “It takes from you. It’s designed to make you hate, because those who hate don’t care any longer what suffering they bring to others. If you can no longer remember anything that made you happy, if everything of joy has been stripped from your thoughts, then revenge is all you have left.”

“Oh. Patterns,” the Doctor says in recognition. “He mentioned patterns—self-hypnosis. He’s cheating their system!”

Aziraphale beams at her in such delight it’s almost a literal glow. “Precisely, yes!”

“How’s Tetchy McSunshine doing?” Donna asks after Israfil sits back. Even the damaged slump to his wings is much improved, though Crowley’s swearing was exceptionally vicious during that bit of healing.

“It was bad enough that if Tenebris wasn’t rather busy upstairs right now, I’d be trying to kill her,” Israfil responds in a tight, angry voice. “But: better now.”

“Tetchy McSunshine?” Crowley glares at Donna as Israfil and Aziraphale help him to sit upright. “I either like you or I hate you.”

Donna grins. “It’s a bit of both.”

“At least it wasn’t a violent welcome.” Jack has his arm around Adam’s shoulders, a comfort that’s probably also intended to keep Adam from rushing right into the thick of things.

“No, it wasn’t.” Aziraphale sits down in front of Crowley. “Ready?”

“Fuck, no,” Crowley admits. “I hate this part.”

“I know, my dear.” Aziraphale wiggles his shoulders, as if steadying himself. “There are two phrases you’re meant to remember. One is mine. The other is yours. Do you recall your phrase?”

Crowley’s expression twitches, his eyes darting around, before he shakes his head. “No. Give me a hint.”

From the expression on Aziraphale’s face, the Doctor guesses that what Crowley said is correct, the proper part of the pattern. “Oscar Wilde’s favorite cravat.”

“He had a favorite? Didn’t he wear two at once for a month just because he couldn’t decide between them?” Crowley asks in irritation.

Aziraphale nods. “And how do you know that?”

“Because…because you told me.” Crowley frowns. “You hid one in a box so he’d knock off with it. Drove him mental for weeks—box.” Crowley’s eyes widen. “Pandora’s fucking box!”

Crowley launches himself directly at Aziraphale, who catches him in an embrace. Crowley clings to him with trembling arms. “Aziraphale.”

“Better,” Aziraphale whispers, smiling. “All back yet, Crowley?”

“I know my name again. Life goals,” Crowley replies. “Give it a few minutes on the rest, all right?”

“All right.” Aziraphale’s grip on Crowley’s tattered jacket tightens. “You have as long as you need.”

“Good,” Crowley mutters, but when the Doctor next hears his voice, it’s in her head. _Healer._ It’s accompanied by the very strong image-sensation of someone holding their finger to their lips, the classic shush gesture.

So, she keeps on as normal while shushing and listening.

_Crowley, you really shouldn’t rush this_! That’s Aziraphale, worried.

_No time. Saving the migraine for later, angel_.

_No time?_ Aziraphale asks in disbelief. _We are stuck in a stupid time loop—_

_No. Time_, Crowley growls. _Samael is already here._

Oh. Oh, that’s not good.

The Doctor nearly turns her head to stare at Israfil when she hears him say, _How do you know?_ She hadn’t realized this really was a group conversation. It’s…it’s been a while. For her. For something like that.

_She was dumb enough to tell me. Tenebris erected the blocks that kept everyone trapped on Earth. Samael began the time loop_.

_Which is why that’s still a thing,_ the Doctor thinks. Time is still buggered, like someone jammed the wheel into place with a stick so it can only tick so far forward before it rewinds to keep the springs from breaking.

_Who _is_ this idiot?_ she asks. _People have mentioned Samael’s name, but no one has properly explained anything!_

The answer she receives isn’t in words, but images that are swift enough to leave her breathless. It’s not the memories themselves, but the intensity behind them, the _feeling_. So much rage, so much despairing anger—it could strip flesh from bone, and that’s only the barest bit of it all.

Samael was the beast imprisoned on Krop Tor, the Bitter Pill. That was the impossible planet held in orbit around a black hole by a gravity well fueled by a source of power that none of them discovered before s/he’d had to destroy Samael’s prison. The writing on Crowley’s skin matches the uninterpretable words the Doctor and Rose found scribbled on the exploratory station’s walls, with only _Welcome to Hell_ written in a language the TARDIS understood.

Crowley. Crowley put Samael into the Satan Pit. It was done so long ago that he isn’t even certain of when, only that it was after the political divide that separated Celestial from self-declared demons.

No wonder Crowley had been terrified when the Doctor mentioned her encounter in the Pit. Samael was here for revenge. Probably he wanted revenge against her, too, all things considered.

None of the exploratory team’s crew ever admitted to writing those words and their untranslatable text on the station’s walls. It probably wasn’t them at all, but the poor Ood, an empathic species taken too close to the prison of something that—

_That’s how. That’s how Samael got out_, the Doctor realizes. It wasn’t the human team’s drilling that opened up the way to the Pit; that just made it worse. It was the fact that the team brought fifty powerful hive-minded empaths with them, their proximity to the Pit just close enough that Samael didn’t _need_ to physically escape. All he had to do was tune his thoughts to theirs…and wait.

Oh. Oh! The markings on Crowley’s skin are _exactly_ the same ones used in the Pit! Except what was the point, if—

Aziraphale sounds flabbergasted. _Tenebris didn’t remember to change them. She used markings meant to entrap a _demon.

The Doctor nearly laughs aloud. _They mucked it up! They got so hung up on revenge that they mucked it up from the start, didn’t they?_

Crowley sounds viciously pleased. _Might’ve done. What’s that you were just thinking about?_

_A quote. A memory._ The Doctor pulls up the brief recollection that had gone flittering through her brain: _This one knows me as I know him, the killer of his own kind_. Samael said that to her using the helpless Ood as their bloody mouthpiece. Well, _him_ at the time, and wearing a face that would have left this Samael bloke seething in rage.

_Was he speaking to me or to you, do you think?_ Crowley asks.

_Well, my people are still alive, and so are yours, so he was spouting nonsense,_ the Doctor responds. _He boringly waxed on and on about how terrifying he was. King of Despair, Deathless Prince, Bringer of Night, Death of Hope, just would not shut it for anything—truly, I don’t use these words often, but he was such a wanker. Sorry he didn’t stay away for those extra three thousand years I mentioned._

_You said it yourself: fifty highly empathic hive-minded people right over the Pit. It really isn’t your fault that he’s here now. Might as well blame the black hole,_ Crowley says, and the words warm her stupid hearts. It is nice to hear when she didn’t actually muck everything up; doesn’t happen very often. _How did those humans and those Ood people get onto the planet in the first place?_

_There was a gravity well, a channel that led from deep space directly to the planet—safe passage directly to the black hole_, the Doctor answers, and is treated to such a creative round of swearing that it’s an effort to make like nothing’s wrong. _Not supposed to have been one of those, I take it?_

Crowley sighs. _No. He must’ve figured out how to alter it—he would have weakened the planet’s orbit to make something like that. Show me how close?_

The Doctor focuses on a memory of looking up through the unshielded viewscreen at the black hole. Unfortunately, her traitorous brain ends up showing them all Scootori Manista’s spaced body as the black hole’s gravity began to claim it. _Sorry, sorry. I was trying for the Scarlet System, and I missed._

It feels like Crowley is staring at her, even though none of them have moved. _Because you don’t like it when people die._

The Doctor mentally flicks her fingers at the memory until it goes away. _It’s a waste._ She always thinks one day she’ll be fast enough, clever enough, to catch onto what’s wrong before people begin to die, and she never is. _It’s always a waste._

_Three thousand years,_ Crowley muses. _Three thousand years exactly, isn’t it?_

_From twenty-second May 1020 BC at noon to twenty-second May 2020, also at noon? It’s exactly that._ Yep, absolutely a trap. _Only been about three hours for me, though, _the Doctor adds.

_Pfft. Details._

_Wait. You mean Samael is _literally_ here?_ Aziraphale suddenly blurts out in scandalized, belated recognition. _How could he get past the wards on my shop?_

_By hitching a ride inside someone else, that’s how. Not Donna—I would have noticed on Thursday, and before she was on her own again, Time already felt wrong._

The Doctor hides her hand in her pocket so she can clench her fist, rather glad she keeps her fingernails short. Martha, Mickey, Jack, Adam, Rose, Wilf.

_Not Wilf_. Crowley sounds frustrated—and exhausted, but the Doctor only recognizes that because she knows exactly what to listen for. _Samael would want mobility. Not Adam, either, but I’m not telling him about this. He gets a bit overexcited._

_Why tell me, then?_ the Doctor asks, glancing over at Adam. He’s sitting on a table instead of a chair, swinging his legs as he talks to Rose, Jack, and Mickey. _Wouldn’t I be under suspicion?_

_You have Celestial blood, idiot,_ Crowley replies, but there’s no heat behind the tetchiness.

Aziraphale: _I still want to know _how_ you have Celestial blood!_

The Doctor mentally shrugs. _Must’ve come from one of my parents, but neither of them claimed to be a Celestial._ Quite the opposite, in one case, but she can keep that to herself for a while longer. _You lot still haven’t explained about the I-can’t-be-this-bloke_ _bit._

_What he means is that Samael can’t possess a Celestial. It would be like marinating in slow poison._ Israfil is still radiating faint shock at her ability to help him properly. _Aside from Adam, all of the others are entirely human._

The Doctor can feel curious intensity from three different beings. Definitely time to redirect that. _Possession, not displacement, right? Not faking a form? Shapeshifting?_

_Possession,_ Aziraphale confirms. _You just showed us that you sent Samael’s corporeal form into a black hole when his prison was destroyed. He would have had nothing but his incorporeal self remaining, and he had no means of making something new. Creating constructs is one thing, but creating life is beyond his skill._

_Right. So, springing another trap, then?_ the Doctor asks, biting back the urge to smile. It’s been a fun several seconds of telepathy, and she’s worried about her friends, but this part?

This part is _always_ fun.

Crowley is a bit gleefully smug, too. _With excellent bait. Just play along._

The Doctor is about to ask how when Aziraphale jerks away from Crowley. “Ouch! What the devil _was_ that?”

“Oh. Sorry. Forgot about that part.” Crowley pulls a chain out from beneath his ruined shirt. It’s attached to some sort of glyph-addled pendant that makes the Doctor’s head hurt worse than the coordinates—and it’s not the sonic frequencies doing it. “I’d love to take it off, but unfortunately…”

Aziraphale scowls as he picks up the pendant and studies it. “That was the point of all this nonsense?”

“No, the rest of it was just because he’s a bastard,” Crowley says.

“What the hell is that?” The Doctor glances over to find Jack looking pained while pointing at the necklace. “The energy it’s radiating isn’t so bad, and I can’t read that, but those glyphs are foul.”

“I’m glad you said it, because if not, I was going to.” Donna shudders. “What _is_ that thing?”

“Uh…” Crowley makes a face. “It’s sort of a metaphysical flash drive.”

Israfil opens his mouth and hesitates. “Actually, yes, that analogy is perfect. The writing on it is designed so that only one person can remove it from my brother’s possession. More specifically, only one person can claim it. And that person is not my brother. Samael is attempting to steal power that does not belong to him. Specifically, he’s attempting to steal from Crowley.”

“So you’re wearing a metaphysical flash drive that you can’t take off unless this Samael bloke wanders by and snatches it,” Martha says. “That’s naff.”

“Martha!” Mickey glares at her. “What did we agree to about that?”

Martha rolls her eyes. “Never in front of the kids, but our kids are at the sitter’s house, we’re stuck in a time loop, and so I will be getting a bit of language out of my system while I can!”

Adam uses the given distraction to run forward and hug Crowley. “You guys have really gotta stop getting yourselves discorporated. It’s just this huge mess an’ everyone cries about it.”

Crowley sighs. “Yeah, sorry.”

Adam pokes at the pendant and then, curiously, tries to lift the chain from the back of Crowley’s neck. It doesn’t budge. “Crap. I was hoping maybe I could get rid of it.”

“Me, I’m just wondering how long you were down there,” Mickey says. “I mean, your hair was short this afternoon.”

Crowley lets go of Adam, his mouth hanging open. “This afternoon—that was just_ today?_” He lets out a frustrated growl. “I hate that woman.”

Martha winces in sympathy. “I get that time is relative, but I mean, how relative are we talking here?”

“Time is relative to your dimension.” Donna looks up at the origin point coordinates on the ceiling. “Or…”

“A dimension within a dimension! She hid you within a pocket dimension in another dimensional plane! That’s why the coordinates were so odd!” the Doctor bursts out, grinning. “Oh, that’s a fantastic idea. I mean, terrible use, but brilliant idea!”

“So, a dimension within a dimension, meaning she could probably do whatever she wanted with it,” Rose murmurs. The Doctor glances at her, thinks, _Bounced off a black hole_, and feels her hearts clench.

She’s never wanted to be more wrong in her entire life. They have a plan, yeah, but no one got around to explaining the de-possession part of things.

But: possession, she reminds herself. Even if she’s right, that’s still Rose.

The Doctor refuses to lose Rose again. Especially not to _him_.

“Are you_ sure_ you’re all right?” Adam asks after Aziraphale helps Crowley to stand up. The Doctor thinks Crowley still looks a bit of a mess, for several reasons, but he’s stubborn.

She comes by that honestly, too. It’s really hard not to grin at the thought.

“You do rather reek, dear,” Aziraphale says, though it sounds as if he’s agreeing with Adam rather than making an observation.

“I’m so very much aware of that, thank you,” Crowley replies, rolling his eyes.

“Lucky you, you’re hanging around with people who have experience with that.” Jack is definitely speaking about the Year That Wasn’t. 2008 Part One. Hell on Earth. Whichever; they were all accurate. “How long was it, exactly?”

Crowley flinches. It isn’t just a physical response, but a psychic twitch that makes the Doctor hyper-aware of Time. “Six months, eighteen days, five hours, thirteen seconds, ten deciseconds—shit!”

Aziraphale gives Israfil an alarmed look when Crowley hunches over with his eyes squeezed shut. “What is this?” he asks, but Israfil shakes his head in confusion.

“Recalculating,” the Doctor whispers. “Oh! Crowley, when did the Trojan Wooden Horse open?”

Crowley grimaces without opening his eyes. “I hate you. 1020 BC, twenty-third May, five minutes three seconds after two a.m.!”

“Nah, you love me,” the Doctor counters, trying to sound cheerful. “World War I Christmas Armistice?”

“No, really, hate you a lot—first bit of it began on twenty-fourth December 1914, 8:16 p.m.!”

“What are you _doing?_” Rose asks in shock.

“It’s recalculation. Readjustment!” Donna snaps back as she finds the right word. “Time, it’s an awareness of time, and his is out of whack from being in the wrong place for six months!”

“Mine was so mucked up after the Time War that it took years to put it back together,” the Doctor comments, glancing at Israfil and Aziraphale. Neither of them seems to understand this, which is weird. Maybe Time isn't something Celestials are meant to be so aware of?

Crowley being a weird exception to that would…well, it would explain a lot about her Mum being so picky. It would _not _explain why Israfil seems so baffled. They’re twins; why don’t they both have that same awareness? If anything, Israfil seems completely bewildered!

The Doctor shoves that aside as a maybe-problem for later. “Stolen Earth—twenty-seven planets dropped into the Medusa Cascade because the Daleks listened to a complete nutter?” It feels like a bit of a cheat, but if Wilf and Donna remember the other timeline, why not a Celestial with a sharp awareness of Time?

“Twenty-ninth September 7:09 p.m. 2009!” Even with his eyes squeezed shut, the Doctor can see that Crowley’s eyes are starting to glow. So are his fingertips. “Fucking pepper pots!”

One more, the Doctor decides, while also trying not to dwell on _pepper pots_. She knows Time and so does he. Something specific, something certain.

For a very annoying millisecond, her mind goes blank.

“Calendars!” she blurts out, because calendars are different everywhere, but their start dates are often fixed points. “When did Celestials start paying attention to time on Earth?”

“ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS—!” Crowley grits his teeth before spitting out the answer so fast it's all one word. “Twenty-firstOctober4004BC9:15a.m.andtwonmicrosecondsADAM!”

Adam visibly jumps when Crowley shouts his name. “What!”

Crowley opens his eyes, but reptilian gold is utterly lost to the same sort of golden light that marks Israfil’s healing. “Bloody Christmas tree!”

“Aw, crap!” Adam yells in dismay. Then everything turns into brilliant, blinding light.


	12. I Believe in You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Every time it really mattered. Every time it was important. I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t tell her. I could never tell her how much she meant to me. I acted like it, I showed it, but that’s really not the same thing, is it?”
> 
> “No. No, it’s really not.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember the Bun Scale? It fully applies to this chapter.

When Aziraphale is finally able to blink the golden spots from his vision, they are somewhere else. For a moment, he stares in complete awe at the vastness around them, an unfiltered view of all the stars in the heavens.

Everything else filters in quite quickly. He is standing on nothingness, though his feet seem thoroughly convinced that there is firm ground beneath his shoes. There is the pressure of an atmosphere around them, warmth, air to breathe—even if he doesn’t need oxygen, stepping into the vacuum of space in this human corporation would be fatal. A gentle breeze is ruffling the short curls of his hair.

“We’re in space,” Mickey says in the tone of voice of one who fully expects to be deceased. “We’re in bleedin’ space.” He reaches out on instinct and finds his wife’s hand. Both Marth and Mickey have the faintest hint of golden light lurking beneath their skin, the artron energy that Donna named for them.

“More like sort-of-in-space.” Israfil is only a few feet to Aziraphale’s right, near to Martha and Mickey. His wings are fully extended again, his staff back in his hand. The sacred alphabet carved into the dark wood is lit up with its own golden light; Israfil’s eyes shine with it. Even his wings are leaving faint whirls of gold as the breeze ruffles his feathers, an archangel at home in the celestial heavens.

“You’re glowing.” Martha sounds rather matter-of-fact about it all. “Just a bit.”

Mickey grins back at his wife. “So are you.”

Donna is staring at her hands. “That’s definitely a good two hundred years or so you lot have left me with. I’m going to break records, I will.” Her fingertips are trailing the same artron energy Marth and Mickey bear, with hints of it dancing in her eyes, so much more than the latter two share.

“I look like a fucking nightlight,” Jack says with a faint huff of amusement. Aziraphale turns his head to find the man to his left, and…well, he wasn’t quite exaggerating. There is so much artron energy bundled in his core that it flows through his veins like individual runners of golden fire. “Talk about an endless well of not-dying—Doc, what the hell are you wearing?”

The Doctor is standing just beyond Jack, her head tilted up to view the stars overhead, when Jack’s words gain her attention. “What? I’m just wearing—oh, _bugger!_” she blurts out as she notices what’s etched in faint lines of gold around her. “I’d bloody well forgotten about this nonsense!”

For Aziraphale, the hinted outfit is uncomfortably mindful of a vast number of Earth-created portraits of celestial beings. The golden outlines a cap on her head that supports a very angelic-appearing headdress, one which connects to panels that fit over her shoulders. The panels are connected to the flow of suggested, full-length robes before the energy disperses into nothing. “What is that?” Aziraphale asks, hoping he sounds polite and not vaguely offended. Angels don’t really have halos, just as demons don’t really have horns unless it’s a matter of personal choice, but the idea of both appeared early in iconography. Complete holy light versus broken holy light, or something along those lines.

The Doctor scowls. “It’s a psychic impression, a permanent one, and I rather enjoyed pretending it wasn’t there. If you’re named as a Time Lord, you earn the stupid robes.” She gestures to the robes in question while looking very much as if she’s trying to yank them off. “But if you’re on the High Council, you have to deal with the stupid headdress, too. It’s how Time Lords identify each other, and how they know if they need to be paying attention to rank, and it’s all completely ridiculous!”

“It…yeah, it kinda is a bit much,” Martha says, valiantly trying to hold back a giggle.

“I told you lot that Time Lords were a bunch of poncy twits! Nobody ever took me seriously because I refuse to act like one!” The Doctor prods at the headdress’s outline and looks entirely miffed when it refuses to budge. “Bugger, I can’t even hide this nonsense right now! That’s so unfair. That’s almost as unfair as not-ginger!”

Aziraphale glances down when Adam tugs on his sleeve, looking a bit uncomfortable. “So, uh, we must be on some kind of ethereal plane, because my wings are kinda here and I can’t hide them.” The copper glow of the seraphim is in Adam’s eyes, too, but Aziraphale decides it’s probably best not to mention that for now. Adam is still adjusting to what his not-father had once been; Aziraphale doesn’t want him to feel any further undue pressure. “And Jack isn’t the only one doing the nightlight thing,” Adam adds.

Aziraphale blinks a few times and then glances down. “Oh, dear.”

His fingertips all have the white flickers of holy fire that is unique to the cherubim, those who can pick up any weapon and imbue it with the flame of Creation. It makes him realize that all four of his wings are extended, though his eye-feathers are obeying him and not attempting to blind everyone. “My eyes are glowing, aren’t they?”

“Yep,” Adam informs him soberly. “Your wings are doing that weird vapor trail thing like Israfil’s are, too. I mean, it’s kinda wicked, I’ve just never seen you do the white glowy thing before.”

“I usually try not to. People often find it distressing.” Aziraphale attempts to get the “white glowy thing” to tone down, but knows at once that nothing changes. Whatever part of the ethereal plane they’re on has no interest in allowing any of them to hide who they are, or what they might be carrying about with them.

“Wait. Where’s Rose?” Jack asks at the same moment that Aziraphale realizes Crowley isn’t with them.

Adam glances around. “I dunno. That’s weird. I know I grabbed everyone who was in the room—”

“Grabbed?” Martha asks, eyes widening.

“Yeah, sorry.” Adam scratches his head and attempts to explain. “Crowley was trying to warn me that there was gonna be a thing and he needed help so it would be a _limited_ thing. Christmas tree is what I called it when he did this on the first Friday repeat, except that was just for a few moments and he could mostly control it. This was, uh, the best I could do. Interstellar Christmas tree.”

“That second energy spike, the one that didn’t repeat,” Jack murmurs. Both Martha and Mickey seem to understand the reference. “I think I know where we are, too.”

“Near the Cascade,” Donna agrees. “Think we’re all familiar with that one by now.”

Israfil sighs. “My brother is bloody _obsessed_ with the Medusa Cascade,” he mutters, and starts walking in the direction of a bright sea-green and gold nebula to their…east? West? North? Down? Aziraphale gives up and decides that directions do not currently matter.

“Why is that?” the Doctor asks, hurrying after Israfil before anyone else thinks to follow. “Why specifically the Medusa Cascade?”

“Guilt complex,” Israfil responds dryly. “Aziraphale, I can sense that Crowley is around here somewhere. Stop fretting.”

“I don’t know how to stop fretting,” Aziraphale retorts primly. However, the reassurance does make him feel better about Crowley’s lacking presence.

“I’m just gonna pretend we’re all walking on glass or sommat,” Mickey says after a few moments of silence. “Because this is weird—Rose!”

The young woman in question isn’t standing so far away, after all, but something about the white hooded jumper she’s wearing allowed her to simply blend in with the stars. Or, perhaps, Aziraphale decides, she was simply ready to be noticed.

Rose turns around. The irises of her eyes are glowing brilliant gold. The artron energy of Time flows beneath her skin like it wants to burst free. There is also an expression of utter misery on her face, with heavy tear-tracks lining her skin. “Hello,” she says, her voice a bit wobbly. “I’m so sorry.”

“Ethereal,” the Doctor whispers. “Celestial. Slow poison. Samael can’t be here!” Then she darts forward and wraps Rose in a hug that whirls them around, the golden impression of robes and her coat a brilliant swirl. “Not your fault, not your fault, not your fault,” she murmurs in reassurance.

“Is too, is too, is too!” Rose repeats, and then bursts into tears.

Jack takes that in for a moment before he glances at Aziraphale. “I’m gonna go way out on a limb here and guess that we missed something.”

“A bit, yes,” Aziraphale admits. “Crowley discovered that Tenebris likes to, er, gloat. Samael was already among us, possibly feeling quite smug about the entire affair, but it required access to a living body.”

“K-Three-Seven Gem Five was the only stupid, stupid black hole I knew of on this side of that stupid wall!” Rose gasps out, her eyes still squeezed shut while the Doctor pats her hair. “And he was bloody right _there_, just waiting for some stupid sod to come along and—”

“Hey, if you’re going to blame anything, definitely look in this direction!” the Doctor interrupts, sniffling. “I thought the stupid black hole ate him!”

“Oh, my God. Rose,” Mickey whispers in realization. “He’s just been—this Samael bloke has just been puppeting you the entire time?”

Rose nods without releasing her tight-fisted hold on the Doctor’s coat, and the outline of those golden robes. “Yeah. I’m so sorry.”

“Shh. Hey. No. Not your fault, an’ I know you. I know you fought back, or you would have been pestering this lot from the start, hey?” The Doctor pulls back enough and makes Rose look at her. “I know you.”

Rose sniffs again. “Okay, yeah, a bit. Managed to direct him a bit off-course, was all. Cornwall probably didn’t much appreciate it. I didn’t have money for this place anymore, made him walk. He was so angry ‘bout that. Then he started…he got stronger. He started _pushing_.” Rose shudders. “It was like marinating in a bucket of slime for days! He just…he dipped into my head and used whatever he wanted, and made me watch. He made me watch _all of it_!”

“He’s always been a good actor. Never above cheating either, though,” Crowley says.

Aziraphale spins on his heel and finds Crowley approaching from behind them. His first overwhelming feeling is one of relief.

That is quickly accompanied by, _Beautiful_, followed by a complete absence of logical thought.

Crowley’s eyes are like Israfil’s, the same molten gold that shines at the tips of his wings. The same golden vapor trails behind his feathers, as well. Unlike Israfil, golden light also shines at his fingertips; it’s left behind in wisps and glass-pattern cracks of shimmering light with every step he takes upon the whatever-it-is that is acting as the grounding point for them all. His clothes are intact, repaired with a thought; his face is clean again, the incongruent wildness of bearded imprisonment gone.

That isn’t what caught Aziraphale’s attention, though. It’s Crowley’s hair. Aziraphale hasn’t seen it that long, wild and curling and free, since Golgotha. He looks younger, too, the way he did before two dukes of Hell gave Crowley a basket with an infant Antichrist in it. It makes Aziraphale realizes how much stress collected on both their faces since that time, though Crowley wore it more heavily than Aziraphale.

Aziraphale decides he doesn’t need to bear that burden any longer and gives his corporation a slight nudge. Tension in his shoulders recedes, pain he’d forgotten was there; he is at once more alert, his skin less taut with concern. The result is such immediate relief that he already feels at home again in his own corporation.

_Oh_, Aziraphale thinks in belated realization. They’re both idiots. They should have done that bit of self-care last autumn after the Not-Apocalypse, and especially after Purgatory.

“Sorry for the delay. Had to clean off…well, just about everything.” Crowley looks down at his hand. “Wait, missed a spot.” He lifts his right hand and blows along his skin. The last remnant of the charcoal-like writing on his skin drifts away in a faint black cloud until it disperses into the nothingness of space.

“You look better,” Donna comments before Aziraphale can gain control of his thoughts. “Love the hair, sunshine.”

“The hair?” Crowley picks up a strand of his own hair and scowls as he realizes what it looks like. “Oh. No, no, we’re not doing that!” He brushes both of his hands through his hair, removing the wild mess of curls until his hair is lying in neat strands that hang down to his shoulders. There is only the faintest hint of curl remaining, which Crowley can never quite get rid of. Aziraphale experiences a moment of intense disappointment, but Crowley hasn’t been fond of his hair appearing that way since the Crucifixion. He’ll simply have to enjoy the fact that Crowley left it long instead of miracling it short and spiked again.

“Oh, that would be so handy to be able to do in the mornings when I’m fighting the kids for a turn at the bathroom,” Martha says. “Is that a teachable trick?”

Crowley blinks at her once in deliberation. “Did you understand even half of the mathematics involved in building that portal in the bookshop?”

Martha makes a face. “Not in the least, sorry. I’m a medical doctor, not a mathematician.”

“Then nope, sorry,” Crowley says, not sounding apologetic in the slightest. “Adam, stop flapping your wings. Gravity isn’t really a thing that exists right now beyond what I’m telling it to do, so please do not go shooting off towards the edge of the bloody cosmos, thank you.”

Adam stills his wings with a guilty look. “Sorry.”

“Belief. Right.” Donna glances down at the lack of flooring again. “We were all standing on this when we opened our eyes, so we believe we’re standing on a solid surface. That’s how it works.”

Crowley nods. “Pretty much. Try to keep believing in that part, it’s a lot more convenient than flailing about because friction stopped existing.”

“Okay, someone please answer this for me,” Mickey says, spreading his arms as he turns around in a circle. “Are we in space or not?”

“Yes-no,” Israfil says. “I did say it was sort-of-space, but my brother can explain it better.”

Crowley glares at Israfil. “Oh, thanks. Look—you’re human. Human bodies respond to the vacuum of space how?”

“Fatally,” Martha says in a wry tone.

“Right, that. Inconvenient—and that _fatally_ part would apply to us, too, by the way,” Crowley adds. “At least in a corporation. But yes, you’re still in space.”

The Doctor holds out one hand, though her other hand is firmly clinging to Rose. A breeze ruffles her hair, and she smiles. “Cosmic wind.”

“The breath of the universe,” Crowley says, but Aziraphale doesn’t miss the fact that the snappish tone all but vanishes from his voice. What’s left is far more…reverent.

“Breath of the universe,” Adam repeats, giving Crowley an expectant look.

“Yes, literal breath,” Crowley says. “The universe is alive. If she wasn’t alive, if she wasn’t breathing, how could she grow?”

Aziraphale feels faint as he experiences the sensation of falling head-over-idiot-heels in love with Crowley all over again. That wasn’t a poem in the traditional sense, but it was poetry in one of its purest forms.

“This is a dimensional plane that means yes, you can exist in space and not die of it, but it’s also what our lot call an ethereal plane. There are a few variations, but you can’t hide anything here, because it’s…” Crowley trails off, looking distinctly uncomfortable.

“Because it was for the builders, the creators,” Israfil finishes quietly. “Those who helped to breathe life into the stars.”

Crowley rolls his eyes. “Yes, thank you, shut it now, please.”

“Okay, actual space but not space. Fine. Why are half of you glowing like nightlights, and what is with my hands?” Mickey asks, holding up his hands to reveal the faint gold hiding beneath his skin.

“Because you spent enough time in the TARDIS to absorb artron energy,” the Doctor says. “Artron energy isn’t sentient, but it’s a bit psychic. That’s how it remembers the flow of Time. If you’re going to make something, you have to see all of it, every part, or you might get something wrong…so…you see everything. Every component, every atom, every bit of dust—all of it fits somewhere.”

Crowley nods, glancing at the Doctor’s gold-traced outlines. “Yeah. What the hell are you wearing, by the way?”

“It’s a psychic impression!” the Doctor snaps. “It’s permanent; I can’t get rid of it.”

Crowley tilts his head. “Do you want to be rid of it?”

The Doctor bites her lip, brow furrowing, as if in the midst of a brief and intense internal debate. “No. I earned it, and I’ll probably need it. I’d just like to be able to make it a bit less bloody obvious.”

Aziraphale has known Crowley for over six thousand years, and he was certain he knew Crowley well enough to interpret every single expression to ever cross his face. This one, though, is beyond him. The way that Crowley looks at the Doctor in this moment is completely unfathomable.

“You just described where you are,” Crowley finally says. “Fix it.”

The Doctor stares at him. “Why should I be able to do that?”

Crowley shrugs. “Why not?”

The staring continues for a bit longer before the Doctor resolutely closes her eyes. Aziraphale isn’t a builder, not a creator—he’s a historian and an archivist, and he has never once regretted it—but he still has an ear for changes of an ethereal nature. The psychic imprint of the Doctor’s rather pompous Time Lord accoutrements fades from his sight. It doesn’t disappear entirely, but it is no longer bright and obvious to anyone with the vision to find it.

Israfil raises an eyebrow. “Well. That was a thing.”

Aziraphale glances at him and resists the urge to pluck at his sleeves. He has a feeling that shouldn’t have been possible.

Crowley has never really concerned himself with what should and shouldn’t be possible.

“Neat. Someone please teach me how to do that,” Jack says.

“Sorry, you’re stuck as a strobe light.” Crowley glances at Jack. “All while still smelling like a brothel. At least you’re advertising properly.”

Rose clasps her hand to her mouth, but not in time to stifle a watery giggle. “A brothel? Really?”

“Yes! It’s bloody distracting,” Crowley grumbles.

“Your face is distracting,” Rose counters.

“Oi!” Crowley scowls back at her. “It was my face first, thank you _very_ much.”

“I was sort of wondering ‘bout that, yeah,” Rose says, wiping her face dry with her sleeves. “Did you know that Samael wouldn’t be able to come here to not-space? Is that why you did this?”

Crowley leans back and shifts in place. “Uh…no, this was sort of a…okay, so, you know if you put something off that you’re supposed to do, and keep putting it off, and keep putting it off, and then you finally pay attention to it and that little bit of a task has sort of grown until it took over half the known planet and you can’t really deal with it any longer?”

Rose’s eyes widen. “I was with you right until the taking over half the known planet part.”

“He means the Roman Republic, dear,” Aziraphale says. “He was supposed to ensure that it didn’t form. I’m still not certain how Crowley didn’t get into trouble for that.”

Crowley gives him a mischievous smile. “I blamed you. Said you’d properly thwarted all of it.”

Aziraphale blinks a few times. “You did what?”

“What? I made it up to you!”

“How?” Aziraphale asks, still outraged. He’d never once understood why he’d received a commendation for thwarting Crowley that year, as neither of them had actually been in Italy. They were in Greece, spectating the fall of Hippias of Athens.

“Stole a _lot_ of scrolls from the Library of Alexandria. While it was actively on fire,” Crowley says.

“Oh.” Aziraphale purses his lips. “All right, fine. I always did wonder why you never mentioned where those came from.”

“Because you were completely fucking depressed, so I waited a good three centuries to hand them over, and then didn’t mention where they came from for good measure,” Crowley retorts. “You’d just stopped your crusade of being pissed on a nightly basis, and I didn’t want to see that start up again.”

“They mean it was a complete accident but in a good way, which is how they do most things,” Adam interprets for the others. Aziraphale wants to be offended by that, but it is rather accurate.

“See, that is something we can get behind, because that’s pretty much how everything happens around him—her,” Mickey corrects, pointing at the Doctor.

The Doctor frowns. “Not everything I do is a complete accident.”

“Yeah, remind me: how did we end up in a parallel reality again?” Mickey asks, giving the Doctor a mockingly inquiring look.

“Because the TARDIS has her own idea on how things should be done, which is how I ended up in Dardanus on my first attempt to come here to answer _your_ bloody voice message,” the Doctor responds, crossing her arms. “That’s less a series of accidents and more losing a whole lot of arguments with a sentient ship.”

That unfathomable expression is on Crowley’s face again. “You ended up in Dardanus because you tried to come here. First.”

“The TARDIS probably figured I should meet you. Before I met you, I mean,” the Doctor says. “At least this time I’m almost meeting people in the proper order.”

“Right. So, yeah.” Crowley turns his attention back to Rose. “Not planned, but I’ll take it. You ready to get that fucking bastard out of your head?”

Rose closes her eyes briefly. “He’s still there, isn’t he? When we go back, he’s still going to be right where we left him.”

“Yeah.” Crowley nods. “I’m sorry. Just because he couldn’t follow you here doesn’t mean you’re rid of the prick.”

“Look, I get why Samael hates the Doctor. I just don’t understand why he hates _you_,” Rose says.

“It’s revenge upon them both,” Aziraphale explains. “Revenge on the one who imprisoned him—Crowley—and revenge on the one who destroyed his corporation. Sorry, his physical form.”

The Doctor points at her face. “Destroying that corporation bit while my face was pretty much spot-on like Crowley, except for the very unfair not ginger bit.”

Israfil seems bemused by that. “Why does the ginger part matter?”

“I’ve always wanted to be a ginger!” the Doctor bursts out. “Now I’m on face number fourteen, and in all that time, I’ve never managed _ginger!_”

Jack’s head jerks up from his contemplation of another star cluster. “I can count, and I know what you said, Doc. Only twelve regenerations per Time Lord. It’s genetically hard-wired in.”

“Yeah, I don’t really know what’s going on with that, either,” the Doctor admits. “Kind of off-topic right now, anyway. Rose first, and then I’ll go back to pretending I totally understand why I’m not dead yet.”

“Okay.” Rose draws herself up. “Tell me there’s a plan.”

Crowley’s eyes flicker over to the Doctor. “Yep. There’s a plan.”

“And…you’re going to tell me what it is?” Rose asks, and then she breaks into a wide smile. “I’m sorry, this is so weird, talking to your face the way it is, even with the glowing eyes bit. How much screeching did you do about the ginger, Doctor?”

“So much,” the Doctor mutters. “And I get exactly what Crowley means. We can’t tell you the plan, Rose. The moment we go back, Samael knows the plan, too, and then there’s no point.”

Rose bites her lip. “Okay. Yeah. I—I get it. Please, tell me _something_.”

“I’ll tell you two things. Lucky you.” Crowley fishes out the pendant on its chain, the one with its markings that declare it to be retrievable only by Samael. “He wants this. Him getting it isn’t part of the plan, isn’t part of the trap, and you know I’m being honest. You want to get rid of Samael? Encourage him to go for it the moment we’re back in the bookshop.”

Rose looks concerned. “But—if he wants it, and he gets his hands on it…what then?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Crowley says. Aziraphale hears the conviction behind his words, unshakable faith that Crowley held onto even when he spent six thousand years as a demon. “Samael can consider it a trade, if he wants, even if he won’t make it an easy one.”

“You said two things,” Martha says. Aziraphale can feel her concern for Rose, as well as her suspicions that Crowley is not telling them something of vital importance regarding the _metaphysical flash drive_. “What’s the other one?”

Crowley looks at Rose. “Do you trust her?” he asks, pointing at the Doctor.

Rose doesn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

“No.” Crowley bends down until he can stare directly into the glowing gold irises of Rose Tyler’s eyes. “It’s not that simple. I mean this: do you trust that the words the Doctor speaks are truths that burn through your heart until there is nothing left? And you still don’t care, because you have faith that after the fire is out, your Doctor will put everything back together again?”

It takes a bit longer for Rose to answer that question. Aziraphale finds himself holding his breath. Poetry. The stars bring out _poetry_ in Crowley, and it amazes him. He isn’t sure if he blinded himself to it for millennia, or if it’s something else. Something old that is new again.

Rose looks at the Doctor and swallows. “Yeah. Yeah, I do. I always have. Always will.” The Doctor squeezes her hand and looks to be on the verge of tears.

“Excellent.” Crowley turns away from them, his attention caught by the nebula. “You’ll be fine, then.”

“Okay, I’m out of patience.” Donna stalks her way over to join Crowley. “What _is_ it about the Medusa Cascade that bugs you so much?”

“Because I never finished it,” Crowley says, unbothered by Donna’s temper. “Hate leaving a job unfinished, but I don’t…I don’t remember how to do that anymore. I literally haven’t been here in millennia.” He pauses. “Never brought anyone else along for the ride, either.”

Martha gestures at the nebula. “You made that.”

“Yep.”

“How?” Martha asks. “And not because I don’t believe you, just—how? How do you make stars exist before life exists?”

Crowley gives her a sour look. “You might as well ask if the chicken or the egg came first. Look, it’s in the name: Celestial. Caelestis. Caelum. Epouranios. Ma’or. Kaidslo. Kaiesal. Kae’oris.”

“It’s the chicken.” Mickey seems offended when the others look at him in exasperation. “Oh, come on, it’s not bloody rocket science. It’s biology! The answer is _always_ the chicken! You’ve got to have something that exists first, figuring out how to lay an egg, before an egg can exist in the first place.”

“I’m not certain if I want to introduce you to certain of my philosophy books, or keep you far, far away from them,” Aziraphale says.

Donna looks at the Doctor, who is gazing back at her in response. “_Your real name is hidden. It burns in the stars, in the Cascade of Medusa herself._ That’s what Evelina said in Pompeii, isn’t it?”

The Doctor nods. “Yeah. She’s wrong, though. If my name were that easy to find, I wouldn’t have been stuck on bloody Trenzalore for nine hundred years.” She glances up at Crowley. “You said you never finished it. Why?”

“Someone invented politics,” Crowley replies.

“Sort of like you forgetting your name. Someone inventing politics,” the Doctor says.

“Good heavens,” Aziraphale murmurs under his breath. Now he really wants to know what was said and done in Dardanus in 1020 BC. Only once in six thousand years had Crowley ever admitted to Aziraphale that he couldn’t remember his ethereal name.

“Pretty much.”

“Brother.” Crowley glances over his shoulder at Israfil, who appears to be very unimpressed. “You explained to the Doctor where we are, and what that means. You’re still going to stand there and tell me that you don’t remember how to fix that?”

“Maybe it isn’t that, then,” Crowley admits. “Maybe it’s more like not remembering how it’s supposed to go.”

“Try anyway, idiot,” Israfil insists. “It isn’t as if we’re short on time. We can go right back to the moment we left behind.”

“Forget the speed beauty bit. That’s what I’d like to know how to do, that bit of backing up to the starting point,” Mickey says.

“Still involves maths,” Crowley responds, but then he closes his eyes.

What Aziraphale feels first is the wind, the breath of the universe. It blows over them like warmth and sunlight, ruffling his hair and feathers like it’s greeting an old friend.

He hears music, except he isn’t hearing anything of the sort. It certainly doesn’t qualify as the celestial harmonies Crowley had once so accurately mocked. This is different.

_Well, if the universe breathes, why can’t she speak?_ Aziraphale realizes in pleased astonishment. The sound is indescribable, balanced against the entire weight of the cosmos.

A moment later, Crowley is cupping his hands around a globe of swirling light, sea-green intermixed with gold and hints of red. To Aziraphale’s surprise, he turns it around and thrusts it directly into the Doctor’s hands. “Hold this,” he orders, grinning. “You’re going to need that later.”

“But what!” the Doctor gasps out, and then the stars are gone.

They’re back in the bookshop. Aziraphale feels himself reel in place, ready to fall over from the shock of transition. That doesn’t normally happen. Crowley rushed it somehow, left them all off-kilter—

Then Rose darts forward. The burn of Samael’s blood-red fire shines in her eyes as she yanks the pendant from Crowley’s neck. She steps back, keeping the wall behind her, as she cradles it in her hands. “Oh, Zaherael. You’ve always been so stupid about what is so very obvious.”

Crowley grimaces at the use of his name. “Yeah. Habit, that.”

The others stand up and surround Rose in a half-circle. Aziraphale is so proud of all of these unusual humans. There is fear for their friend, but above all is a determination to see her safe. Love drives their actions, and it’s so very strong.

Aziraphale reaches out on instinct and grabs Adam’s arm when he tries to get too close. “Hush,” he murmurs. “Stay with me.”

“Oh, Lucy decided to have herself a baby. How tooth-rotting in its sweetness.” Samael, now truly wearing Rose’s body, holds up the pendant by its chain and watches as it turns in a circle. “But you’re such a naughty boy, siding with angels. She couldn’t even get that right, could she?”

“I think Lucy went an’ got it perfect, thanks,” Adam retorts, scowling.

“You know…” Samael continues twirling the pendant around with a crooked finger. “I thought it so very odd that you’d return to Krop Tor, Zaherael. The lack of memory I could understand. Gehenna is like that, isn’t it? Then I realized: oh! That wasn’t you at all. It was something far more ironic, wasn’t it?”

Crowley’s expression goes stony. “Ssstop it.” He takes a breath and quickly hisses, “You’ve no right to ussse my true name, you’ve no right to ussse my true name, you’ve _no right_ to ussse my true name!”

“Zah—” Samael chokes on the sound and then sulks. “Fine. Crowley, then. As if it makes such a difference. If you want to still be known as a demon, who am I to judge?”

Israfil’s voice is mild compared to the crackling ice in his gaze. “It’s cute how Samael still thinks it’s about that, isn’t it, Brother?”

“Yep.” Crowley reaches out and grips the Doctor’s arm when she marches forward. “Wait.”

“Rose,” the Doctor growls in response.

“I know.” Crowley glances down at her, but Aziraphale can’t see the look on his face from this angle.

There isn’t even a hint of a nudge in the air, but the Doctor is calmed by whatever she sees in Crowley’s eyes. “All right,” she says in apparent agreement. “Let’s hear what he has to say, then.”

“Are you sure you want to do that?” Samael asks, smiling in a way that looks simply obscene on that poor girl’s face. “I might entice you to murder this body. You’d Fall all over again, and wouldn’t that just be fitting? Wouldn’t it be who you truly are?”

Crowley snorts. “Wow, bad argument. I really haven’t changed all that much—well, my brother would argue on the cynicism, but really, I’m still me. Before, during, after, right now: still me.”

Samael tilts their head, red eyes glinting. “Is that what you told yourself when Pronoia was destroyed? That it wasn’t of your own making?”

Aziraphale sees Israfil flinch and knows at once that this is probably not going to be kind. Crowley, however, doesn’t seem surprised at all.

“A lot of people witnessed you murder her, Samael. They all know who’s to blame.”

“Do they?” Samael breathes in, as if they can smell something delightful. “What if I told everyone here the truth? Do you think they would still stand with you?”

Crowley spreads his arms. “Go ahead, then. You’ve got the attention of the entire class. Have at it. Tell them what you think you know.”

“No. I’ll tell them the truth. That’s ever so much more fun,” Samael replies. “You see, humans, once upon a time there was a war among the Celestials, the very first war to ever exist. Those of us who disagreed with…policy…well, we quickly discovered we were quite good at war. I like to think I was one of the best.”

_One of the worst, you mean,_ Aziraphale thinks in anger. Samael’s atrocities are still the stuff of such nightmares that they aren’t even used as bedtime stories for the angelic children who are born every now and then.

“When those of us who were judged to be so very naughty, Fallen in the vernacular, began to be cast out of our home, I hid myself away. I wasn’t about to leave without…making a statement,” Samael says. “The best sorts of statements always involve blood, do they not?”

“I like porn better, to be honest,” Jack comments.

“Poetry,” Martha adds.

Mickey nods. “Telly. Don’t even like _Game of Thrones_, myself.”

“That’s because your lives are fleeting. They’re _nothing_,” Samael retorts, teeth bared, before recovering their smile. “No matter. What is one to do when one needs to hide but ask for sanctuary among the Healers?” Then they mock-gasp. “Sorry, Healer, singular. You were already a bit indisposed, weren’t you, Raphael?”

Israfil narrows his eyes. “You abused our sanctuary?”

Samael laughs. “I did ever so much more than that. Didn’t I, Crowley?”

“Still right back to the murder bit,” Crowley says flatly, but Aziraphale knows him. He glances down to see that Crowley’s hands are clenched into tight fists. He only ever does that when he doesn’t want to let on that his hands are shaking.

“No, no, no.” Samael shakes their head in disappointment. “Before there can be the first murder, there must be the first betrayal. You do remember that, don’t you?”

“That’s a bit hard to forget, especially when someone doesn’t know how to take _no_ for an answer,” Crowley replies. Donna suddenly looks completely outraged, but remains tight-lipped and silent.

“That was so very frustrating.” Samael puts on an air of regret that Aziraphale doesn’t trust at all. “I spent days wasting my time, attempting to seduce someone who wouldn’t know the meaning of the word even if it bit him on the arse and said hello. We could have had such fun together, you and I, but you…” Samael sneers at Crowley. “You were too good for the likes of me, even playing at humble penitence as I was, weren’t you? Arrogance is such a sin, Crowley.”

“Some days I’m really convinced that ignorance should be one, too.” Crowley’s voice is still flat, expression chiseled in stone, hands clenched—but otherwise, he is unmoving, not even breathing. This is the waiting stillness of the serpent. Aziraphale tries not to fret, because once this point has come, there is no reading Crowley’s intentions.

“Still, it didn’t matter. I only had to wait so long. The moment I knew that Hahlii had retrieved what I wanted from the armory while his feathers were still unblemished…” Samael lets out a long, happy sigh. “Some of us had already discovered that the weapons we created were different from those of our Celestial brothers. They were like venom, like crippling poison to those who had yet to Fall.”

“What. Did. You. Do?” Israfil growls.

Crowley doesn’t look away from Samael. “He violated the oath of sanctuary.”

Samael laughs. “I did even better than that, Raphael. I violated a _Healer_.”

“Is that what we’re calling stabbing these days?”

Samael shakes their head at Crowley. “I rather liked it when it was still called piercing. It was more…accurate.”

“God bless the Scots, then,” Crowley responds. “Their word for it was much better.”

"Amen to that," Donna adds, and looks a bit gleeful when Samael flinches.

Samael recovers and twirls the pendant around again. “I hadn’t realized how literal the crippling part was, not until I drove one of our daggers through your body. You were always so thin, Crowley. I scraped the stone beneath your body with its tip. Do you remember?” They smile. “Do you remember my hands? Do you remember everything I said I would do to you while you were helpless beneath me?”

Crowley grins, sharp, his fangs longer than usual. “Do you remember the building picking you up and flinging you out of the infirmary ssso fassst that you were embedded in a wall on the opposssite ssside of the Cccity?”

“I alwaysss did like that bit of magic in the wallsss,” Israfil comments. Aziraphale glances over to note that his pupils are reptilian, his eyes entirely blue.

Oh, wonderful. Both of them are angry. Aziraphale is only accustomed to calming one angry serpent, not two of them.

Samael brushes imaginary dust from their sleeve. “That was a bit unfortunate, yes, except for the part where it placed me so much closer to the holy blade Hahlii had procured for me. I took it in my hand, and in moments, Pronoia was no more. Her own daughter watched her die, did you know that?”

“Gamaliel was still a child, and still she had the strength to drive you away,” Crowley hisses. “You might have broken her father, but the only thing you did to their daughter was grant her a strength the others can barely conceive of.”

“Details,” Samael utters in blatant dismissal. “I always did want to know how you got up from the…the state I left you in. Our weapons burn those who are Celestial; they cannot bear to touch them.”

Crowley blinks once, deliberately. “I yanked your stupid dagger free with my own hands, tossed it aside, and went to see if anything could be done to stop what you’d wrought.”

Samael lights up with glee. “Then Gabriel was right. You were Fallen already.”

“No. Idiot.” Crowley rolls his eyes. “It’s called balance.”

Samael finally looks surprised. “What?”

“Don’t you remember Raguel’s scales?” Crowley suddenly leans forward. “After Raphael died, I asked her. I asked her _every day_: where am I? Where do I fall? And every day, Raguel measured the weight of my soul and found it in perfect balance between what was and what would be. That was always your fucking problem, Samael. You so easily mistake naivety for stupidity!”

“I do no such thing!” Samael yells. There is a roar beneath their voice, a strong hint of the other that possesses Rose.

“You’re doing it right now!” Crowley’s smile is bared teeth and fangs, humorless and fiery. “You tell that story as if it’s the worst thing anyone could ever know about me. You’ve had ten thousand years to get this moment right, and that’s all you’ve got? Just that? The fucking M25 rates worse than that all by itself!” he shouts. “The fucking Stamp Act. Reverse psychology. Mapquest—oh, and that one was a huge mistake, so glad Google fixed it before they decided to be evil. Manchester. Carthage. Fucking office buildings! God, at least go for something that was truly an earsore, a plague upon humanity, and mention dial-up modem handshakes!”

“Dial-up modems,” Mickey says.

“Don’t ask. It’s safer that way,” Aziraphale replies.

"What's a dial-up modem?" Adam asks, and Mickey lets out a groan of modern despair.

"You missed your opportunity, Samael." Crowley tilts his head and pins a startled looking Samael with the viper’s stare. “You’re not terrifying. You’re _pathetic_.”

Samael reels back as if physically struck. “How _dare_ you—!”

Crowley looks at the Doctor. “There. Now Rose can hear you. You wanted to know why I asked her if she trusted you?” The Doctor nods rapidly. “I know you love her—and don’t lie, because I can feel it. This is the time to tell her everything you’ve never said. This is your second chance, the only one you’ll ever have. If you don’t take it, there won’t be a third. It’s this or it’s never. You won’t just lose Rose Tyler from your life. Samael will eradicate her; he’ll wipe her from existence in revenge for what’s been said today.”

Then Crowley surprises Aziraphale by reaching out to take the Doctor’s hand. “There’s never a good time to talk about love. You just say it and hope for the best, because that’s all any of us can ever do. I got lucky. I got a second chance to say all of the things I should have said ages ago, and that doesn’t happen very often. Tell her. There will be no taking this moment back. If you don’t say it now, you never will.”

The Doctor swallows. “Every time it really mattered. Every time it was important. I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t tell her. I could never tell her how much she meant to me. I acted like it, I showed it, but that’s really not the same thing, is it?”

Crowley shakes his head. “No. No, it’s really not.”

The Doctor closes her eyes briefly, nods again, and then marches directly over to Samael. She grips both of Rose’s hands and looks directly into blood-tinted eyes. “I know you can hear me, Rose. I know you trust me. I also know that you’re well aware of the fact that I can be such a liar, but I swear, I’m not lying. Not right now, and not about this.”

Samael appears to be trying to shrink back, but the Doctor refuses to let go. “No, you don’t. We stood there and listened to you prattle on, so now you can stand there and listen to me.

“When I met you, I was in pieces,” the Doctor says. “I was shards of glass that cut everything. Then you reached out, you took my hand, and you didn’t bleed. Right from the start, you were putting me back together, an’ I was so, so scared because—oh, there’ve been people that I’ve loved, Rose Tyler. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t, but it scared me so much because I’d never felt for them what I felt for you, both of my stupid hearts wanting to sing of it all the time like some daft, stupid fool.

“You saved my life, and not just literally, either. You took those shards and insisted I put them back together. You weathered the Oncoming Storm, treating all of that rage as if it was just a bloody harmless spring shower. You made me question what I was doing, and you put your foot down right hard if you thought I was making a mess of things. I thanked you, thanked you for all of it, but it wasn’t enough.

“Then…then you were gone. I thought I’d lost you once, and it hurt so much. Then I lost you to a wall, to a door that would never open again. I lost you to a place I couldn’t follow, and when you left, you took one of my hearts with you.”

The Doctor pauses and swipes at her face with her coat sleeve to dry it of tears. “My life has been a complete cock-up since I lost you. I fucked up, Rose. I fucked up so badly. Donna was right, you know? I really do need someone, but I didn’t ask, didn’t reach out. I couldn’t stand the thought of losing anyone else, and when I still had that face you loved, I did something I can’t ever take back. I regenerated for real after that, tried to move on, but one of my hearts was still gone.

“Everyone I traveled with after I left you lot behind? They all chose to stand with me, even if I tried to drive them off, but they still died because of me, all of them. I’ve got so many names written on that one remaining heart. It wasn’t right, not any of it. It got to the point—Rose, I was so afraid to speak to anyone else. I felt like a plague, like walking Death. I felt like nothing I did mattered anymore, because the result was always the same.

“And then…” The Doctor sniffs and tightens her grip on Rose’s hands before Samael can yank them away. “Right at the end, right before this face, I was giving up. I wasn’t gonna regenerate. It hurt so much. I was two thousand, nine hundred ninety-six years old, and I’d already decided that it was enough. More than enough.

“But then I felt hope again. Right at the very end, I watched a literal miracle unfold, and I thought: maybe one more try. Give it one more go. Maybe this time I can do better. I think…I think that hope came along because somewhere, deep down, I knew my other heart was going to come back to me.”

“Let go,” Samael rasps, but Aziraphale doesn’t hear the demon in Rose’s voice. Not a bit of him.

The Doctor shakes her head. “No, I won’t! Not this time, not again. I let go of you once, and I lost you, and I’m not doing it anymore. Let me tell you this, and I hope both of you are listening: when I was down in that stupid Satan Pit, staring up at Samael’s body while the rest of him was off gallivanting somewhere else, I told him that I didn’t know if I believed in what he stood for. Didn’t know if I believed in gods or devils or anything else. I said that if I believed in one thing in this universe, just one thing…I believed in _you_.

“I love you. I’ve had two thousand years to stop, an’ I can’t. I will love you until existence crumbles into dust and the universe ends, and probably won’t be bothering to stop then, either.” The Doctor takes a deep breath and smiles. “Besides. You’re the big Bad Wolf, Rose. Are you really going to let this utter wanker mess you about?”

Rose’s eyes are taking on the faint glow of golden light, an echo of what Aziraphale witnessed on that cosmic ethereal plane. “You love me?” she whispers.

“Always have, always will. I can’t promise not to muck it up sometimes, because I’m really, really bad at feelings, but—yeah. I do love you,” the Doctor promises. “How do you stop loving someone, anyway? Why would you want to?”

Rose’s grip on the Doctor’s hands tightens before her head jerks back. “Oh, you don’t like that, yeah? TOO BAD!” she shouts at the ceiling. The shine of her eyes becomes luminescent as something that looks like misted blood emerges from her mouth and nose in a thick, noxious cloud.

A thin crack in reality appears in the air above Rose’s head, one that is the exact color and feel of Hellfire. The blood-red mist escapes through the crack in a speedy rush just as Rose collapses directly into the Doctor’s arms.


	13. Dominion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some people get some much-needed not-closure, followed by stupid dramatics.
> 
> To be fair, everything got worse, so sometimes stupid dramatics are the default response.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So not beta'd except by @norcumi noticing a few of my special typos mid-writing, and Crowley is a dramatic bastard.

“Israfil, no!” Crowley thinks himself to the other side of the room, just in time to grab both of Israfil’s arms. Israfil is struggling to get to the closing portal, and is slowly dragging Crowley with him. “Knock off with it, you sodding idiot!” Crowley yells. “You can’t go where he’s going! None of us can!”

“He hurt you!” Israfil snarls.

“Yeah, well, a lot of people have hurt me in six thousand years. You gonna hunt them all down?” Crowley asks, slapping Israfil in the back of the head. “Stop acting like a bag of mad ferrets! You’re worse than me in a temper, and I spent six thousand bloody years in a bad mood.”

Adam reaches out and makes a gesture that’s rather like someone pulling a zipper closed. The hellfire-colored tear in reality vanishes. “There. Problem solved,” he says, grinning when Israfil lets out a frustrated growl.

“Well done, dear boy,” Aziraphale tells Adam, who beams.

Israfil lowers his head, his shoulders heaving as he tries to breathe out a monstrous fit of temper. “Fine. Where did he go, then?”

Crowley glances at the place where the crack had been. “Megiddo.”

“What, like in Israel?” Mickey asks.

“No, he did not go to bloody Israel!” Crowley glares at him. “The _real_ Plains of Megiddo, the place that particular spot on Earth is named for. It’s a sub-dimension of Below, a frozen wasteland that also happens to be on fire. It’s where Samael planned to live before I stuffed him into a Pit hovering over a black hole.”

Israfil finally sighs. _Are you all right?_

Crowley drags his idiot brother into a hug. _I’m bloody frustrated, but I’m fine. Good as new. Literally. Oh, damn! I have to go get those tattoos redone again!_

Israfil is trying not to laugh when they let go of each other. _If you keep getting discorporated, that artist is going to be able to tattoo your foot in his sleep._

“Wait. If none of us can go where he’s going…how did _you_ get there?” Jack asks. Crowley takes a moment to remind himself that he is currently surrounded by intelligent,_ nosy_ humans.

“For starters, Lucy didn’t want him there.” Crowley’s sunglasses are—somewhere. Bollocks. He snaps his fingers and calls up a new pair, sliding them onto his face. Better. “When someone who is aiming for the title of self-proclaimed Ultimate Evil is worried that someone else might give your entire lot a bad name…”

“Lucy.” Martha gives him a stare Crowley is accustomed to receiving from badly startled Christians, even if they’re very lapsed Christians. “You mean Lucifer.”

“Yeah, same difference, just depends on her mood. Also, she’s the civilized one.” Crowley pats down his pockets and frowns. “Wait, who has my mobile?”

“Here, dear.” Aziraphale hands him the mobile, which has a scuff on the casing from where it landed on the pavement a few hours ago. Six months ago.

Crowley takes a moment to throw off that sense of conflicting time and accepts his wallet along with the mobile. “Thanks.” He brings up the contact list, scrolls down to L, and punches in the number. Theoretically, he has it memorized, but right now his memory is doing its usual dodgy fucking wobble that always comes from things needing to filter back in.

Confronting Samael hadn’t helped with that. At all.

The moment the ringing stops and the line picks up, Crowley has to hold the mobile away from his ear. He waits for a break in the yelling and then puts it back. “Yeah, hi, _I didn’t let him out_.” Crowley rolls his eyes when Lucy swears in corrupted Celestial. “No, Samael figured it out for himself. Look, he’s in Megiddo. If you want him back out, go get him—”

Lucy hisses in frustration, her voice switching from male to female. “I can’t.”

Crowley blinks twice, not certain he heard that correctly. “What do you mean, you can’t?”

“He has closed it off,” Lucy explains. Beneath the frustration is a great deal of what sounds like exhaustion. “The Plains of Megiddo are completely inaccessible to any denizen of Hell, including myself. The only way Samael is returning from Megiddo is if he chooses to leave on his own.”

“Great.” Crowley taps his fingers along his wallet. Samael wasn’t going to give up that easily. “If I and whoever else is involved actually gets rid of him, I want a favor in return.”

“Crowley!” Aziraphale gasps in outrage. Crowley glares at him and gestures for Aziraphale to shush.

“What sort of favor?” Lucy asks in suspicion. “I could deny such based solely on what you did to Tenebris.”

“Tenebris was working with Samael, so I wouldn’t get too hung up on her loss if I were you.” Hell might not have lost her anyway; even with her soul intact, she might still choose to remain Fallen. “I want a favor _in perpetua_, because I don’t actually need anything right now. Anyone who has a hand in making Samael dead, you grant them a favor, no strings attached, no time limits, no tricks, no take-backs.”

Lucy is quiet for a moment. “If you truly succeed in getting rid of Samael, consider your favor _in perpetua_ granted for everyone involved. On my honor, I swear it. It’s good to know you haven’t forgotten how things are properly done.”

“Look, I just spent six months in a pocket dimension Downstairs, so let’s just say it’s fresh in my mind.” Crowley hangs up the call before he can say anything else that rings of potential stupidity.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale repeats, crossing his arms in displeasure.

“What? Look, I’ve explained to you before: there is a difference between a temptation, a deal, a trade, and a favor, and that last one? It doesn’t happen very often, so you take it when you can get it, because you never know when you might need it.”

“What about Madonna’s request in Dardanus? Where does that fall?” the Doctor asks from her spot on the bookshop floor. The Doctor is giving Crowley a look that does a very good job of masking a great deal of cautious concern. She’s also still holding onto Rose, who is either unconscious or definitely considering the potential benefits.

“I filed it as a trade,” Crowley answers, putting his mobile and his wallet back into their usual places in his jacket. “Nobody Downstairs looks at the documentation that involves trades, because they don’t get anything out of it.”

“Yes, but she used the term _deal_,” the Doctor argues. “How do you turn a deal into a trade?”

“Right, that’s my own fault, isn’t it?” Crowley mutters. He scrubs at his hair, remembers that it’s long again, and then miracles it into a partial tail just to keep it out of his face. “You balance it. Your Time Lady companion wanted something out of love, so…”

The Doctor frowns. “How does the fall of Troy count as an act of love—oh!” Her face lights up. “Oh, that’s why! Aziraphale was involved, wasn’t he?”

“He lived there, yeah.” Crowley feels his cheeks burn when Aziraphale gives him a startled look. “Shut up, Zira.”

Fortunately, the humans interrupt before Aziraphale has the chance to say a word. “So, among your lot—er, that lot…” Martha takes a breath. “A temptation is…a hint. A nudge. Free will applies, right?” Crowley nods, vaguely impressed. “Then a deal is a sealed contract, the sort you can’t get out of. A trade is a balanced negotiation. That makes a favor…”

“Powerful,” Crowley finishes. “Very, very powerful. The sort of thing that can literally bring people back from the dead. Granted, if you word the request wrong, you’re going to get a shambling corpse, so try not to die, all right?”

Jack looks leery. “Let’s not with the shambling corpses. Been there, done that, burned the t-shirt afterwards.”

“You didn’t finish answering the question, though. If we can’t go down there now—any of us—how could you do it thousands of years ago?” Donna asks. “I mean, I know you said you were Fallen, but a demon who has a baby gives birth to a Celestial, not a demon, right?”

Adam slowly raises his hand. “Yeah, uh…kinda. I mean, the potential is there an’ all, but it’s like choosing a gang and stuff. I mean, my dad’s an accountant an’ my mum’s a housewife, but I don’t wanna be either one of those. It’s the same thing, really.”

“There’s not a thing wrong with being a housewife,” Donna says, which distracts Adam from the fact that the other humans are trying not to stare at him. Crowley rolls his eyes; the kid had wings a few minutes ago. Wasn’t that bloody hint enough?

“I guess not, but it’d be so _dull_,” Adam complains. “My mum never does anything fun.”

“Okay, so,” Donna continues, refusing to be bothered by the fact that Adam’s not-parent had been a demon, “if a Celestial’s genetics don’t change, then how could you go into a frozen wasteland that’s toxic to Celestials without dying?”

Crowley opens his mouth to answer. Then he tries again. “Right, yeah. No idea.”

Martha scowls. “Then how are we going to deal with Samael? I don’t know about you lot, but I’m not keen on the idea of something like him wandering about.”

“Oh, he’ll come back,” Crowley says. “He’s angry, and he won’t stop. Not until he’s gotten the revenge he’s here to claim.” Then he glances down at Rose when he senses returning awareness, though neither she or the Doctor looks inclined to move. “You all right there, Bad Wolf?”

“Yeah,” Rose answers without lifting her head from the Doctor’s shoulder. “He took the energy in that pendant, though. Every single bit of it. I figure that’s probably bad.”

Crowley is only slightly concerned about that. He knows what he put into that pendant. “Yeah, thought he might. It’s not going to give him the power he thought it would, though.”

“No, you don’t understand.” Rose pushes herself upright, though Crowley notes the Doctor is possibly the only thing keeping her from falling over again. “That was just a bonus for him. It wasn’t the goal.”

“Bonus.” Crowley closes his eyes briefly. “All right, taking the bait. Why was it only a bonus?”

“Look, if he was at the same level of power he’d had when we first met the bastard, he wouldn’t have been able to stick around, not in my mind.” Rose’s voice gains strength and sharpness both. “I’d have kicked his arse out so fast his head would’ve been spinning. But he didn’t. He took all the energy from whatever was keeping that planet in orbit, and then he hung about _in front of a black hole._ He couldn’t escape its pull, not without help, but that doesn’t mean he spent all that time doing nothing, either.”

“He spent all that time in front of a black hole.” Crowley lets his head fall back and growls in frustration. “Absorbing every single bit of energy he could get his hands on that the black hole wasn’t already eating. Yeah. Great. Fuck!”

“How did Rose drive him out, then?” Mickey asks. “I mean, Bad Wolf bit aside,” he says to her. “If he’s that powerful, then how was it done?”

“First step was to knock him loose,” Crowley explains. “Humiliate him. He _really_ doesn’t like that.”

“But it was the love that did it,” Rose adds, shivering. “I mean, he wouldn’t let me hear much, but there at the end? It hurt him. Not fatally or anything, but he really didn’t like how it felt.”

Crowley nods. “Samael hates love. Rather like Voldemort that way. He doesn’t understand it, and I’m not sure if he ever has. Maybe he did once and rejected it, I dunno.”

“He corrupted himself rather early on,” Israfil adds. “Love is a part of…well, divinity. Samael separated himself from that idea a long time ago.”

“I heard what he said to you, though.” Rose gives Crowley a quiet, sympathetic look. “Are you all right?”

Crowley thinks about it. “If I said I was fine, you’d know I was lying, wouldn’t you?”

Rose grins and nods. “Yeah. It’s the face, mate. I’m sorry. Even with the sunglasses in the way, I’d still know it.”

“Hurray,” Crowley drawls. Fantastic. He always wanted to be surrounded by people who could read him like a bloody open book because they knew _someone else_ with his blasted face.

“Shit.”

Crowley glances at Jack, noticing that the others are doing the same. “What? What is it, Jack?” Martha insists when Jack does nothing more than grant his audience an unfocused stare.

“I think I probably made everything worse.” Jack shakes himself and looks at Aziraphale. “Donna said that you lot, Celestials, you’re not affected by resets in Time.”

“Unfortunately,” Aziraphale confirms. “We remember both versions of 2008, and both timelines due to that interesting reset in 1996.”

“And this Samael, he’s still genetically a Celestial, even if he’s calling himself a demon. Right?” Jack asks.

“Oh, I don’t like where this is going,” the Doctor murmurs. “Jaaaaaaack?”

“Look.” Jack straightens, and suddenly looks very much like a soldier. It’s not about carrying a weapon; it’s something Crowley is familiar with because Aziraphale does it sometimes, too. It’s poise and readiness, and sometimes Crowley finds it a bit bloody terrifying. “When I first landed in this time, I missed the twenty-first century and ended up in the nineteenth. I had to catch up on my Earth-based religions, fast, because it was weird if you _didn’t_ know anything about them. I was getting killed often enough already that I didn’t want a bunch of religious nuts to join in on the fun. From what I read, Samael was the Destroyer, the Christian idea of Satan. But that’s not all he’s called.”

“_Some may call him Abaddon. Some may call him Krop Tor. Some may call him Satan. The King of Despair. The Deathless Prince. The Bringer of Night_,” the Doctor says. Crowley has the feeling she’s quoting the bastard, especially when Rose shivers.

Jack snaps his fingers at her and nods. “Abaddon. That’s the bad part.”

“You’ve met him,” Israfil realizes. “How?”

“In Cardiff, there is a literal rift in time and space,” Jack says. Crowley immediately revises his idea of buying _any_ real estate in that entire region. “The city is built right on top of it; it’s why Torchwood Three is located there. At the end of 2007, something came through the Rift. It was really big, traditionally demon-shaped, and not quite here. Incorporeal, I guess. Didn’t matter, though. Everywhere this thing went, if its shadow landed on something alive, that thing died. Plants, animals, people—everything. The idiot who instigated the entire mess called the demon-shaped thing Abaddon. Abaddon the Devourer.”

“He was already reaching out. He was already trying to come here,” Rose whispers. “How did you stop him, Jack?”

“By overdosing him on the life he was trying to steal.” Jack spreads his hands. “Can’t die, remember? Except it wasn’t a defeat. It was a con, a setup. All of it, from start to finish. As a former con artist, I’d be impressed, except for that part where he’s probably gonna kill us all.”

“Yep.” Mickey slaps Jack on the back and glares at him. “Bottomless well of positive thinking, that’s you.”

“That’s really not your fault, love,” Donna says to Jack. “You’d have to have known about so many different pieces to know it was a setup, and we still don’t even have all the bloody pieces!”

Jack nods. “I know. Still not feeling all that great about helping the bad guy, though.”

Adam glances up at Crowley. “So, if things were already pear-shaped, what are they now?”

“Pretty sure we’ve moved on from pears to pomegranates,” Crowley says.

Adam wrinkles his nose. “Why pomegranates?”

“Have you ever tried to eat one of those things?”

“It’s psychic!” the Doctor suddenly blurts out in excitement.

Crowley makes a disgruntled face. “What? Pomegranates?”

“No, not the pomegranates!” The Doctor looks insulted that he would even be equating pomegranates to whatever she’s talking about. “I mean, Celestial to demon! You’re incorporeal beings, immortal in every sense—”

“_Almost _every sense!” Israfil interjects, a bit alarmed by the immortality accusation.

“All right, fine. Incorporeal beings who are immortal in almost every sense, even if you have a physical form,” the Doctor corrects herself. “You’re telepaths with an intuitive understanding of how the universe works, or else that—” She waves her hand at the maths still chalked into place all over the bookshop, “—wouldn’t be so easy for you. A Celestial who becomes a demon literally Falls from one dimensional plane, your not-planet of origin, to another dimensional plane that is…well, Aziraphale said it himself! It’s toxic! It changes you. It’s like a skin-deep alteration of mind and body. It makes your connection to the universe different, puts you out of synch with what _was_ normal and gives you a _new_ normal just to survive in that sort of environment. It’s a psychic readjustment of biological parameters because you know and believe it’s necessary!”

“Wait. Wait just a…just wait.” Crowley holds up his hand, one finger raised. “Aside from the fact that you are so correct it’s actually fucking terrifying, weren’t you the person who was just saying ‘round about four hours ago in Dardanus that demons were nothing more than superstitious nonsense?”

The Doctor smiles. “Yeah, but that was four hours ago. A lot can happen in four hours. Or even in five minutes!”

Israfil raises an eyebrow in polite inquiry. “That was spoken very much like someone who has used that exact same concept to initiate a skin-deep alteration.”

“Oh. Yeah. 2008 wasn’t the best year I’ve ever had,” the Doctor admits. “The first time through, I mean. I skipped the second run, didn’t want to repeat myself.”

“Oh, so you’re familiar with the little spinny razor death balls, then,” Crowley says.

“Toclafane.” Martha seems to be putting a lot of effort into not clenching her jaw. “They claimed the name Toclafane. They used to be human.”

“Yeah, we could tell,” Crowley responds curtly. He really didn’t like that year. “Why did you have to put yourself back together?” he asks the Doctor. “Also, how? That takes a lot of…”

Aziraphale glances at him in surprise. “We did spend quite a while trying to figure out what that large concentration of energy was near the end of that year, didn’t we?”

“No, _you _spent a lot of time theorizing about it,” Crowley replies. “_I _spent a lot of time drinking to the fact that the year reset itself and the spinny razor death balls didn’t come back the second time.”

“Why did I need to do the psychic alteration?” The Doctor sort of shrugs. “Long story short, I have this nutter friend—”

“HAVE?” Martha and Jack both shout in angry disbelief.

“Have? Yes. Long story _short_,” the Doctor insists, “She—well, he at the time—was rather upset with me for a multitude of reasons due to a mutually shared history of me trying to get the Master to knock off with destroying things, and him taking personal offence to me stopping him.”

Crowley lifts his glasses just enough to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Is there a good reason he calls himself the Master, or is it a stupid reason?” Doctor at least makes sense to him; he bears a similar title.

“Partly because his first name is thirty-two letters long and a pain in the arse to pronounce,” the Doctor says bluntly. “An’ I mean it, his parents did him no favors at all with that one. The rest of it is weird and cultural. When you get closer to graduating from the Academy, closer to being named as a Time Lord, you put aside your name and select a title. Names are dangerous; titles are something anyone can have. The Master went with something he thought embodied his cleverness.” The Doctor presses her lips together for a moment in sad amusement. “He thought mine was sanctimonious.”

“Right. Because that makes so much sense,” Martha states flatly. “I’m a medical doctor and I’m offended, by the way.”

“At the time, the Master was being a tease. Later, though, when the madness was getting worse—later, he meant it,” the Doctor says. “Anyway, 2008, take one: we thought we had a plan for dealing with him, but he’s clever. I mean, really clever, even if he was insane at the time. The Master outsmarted us when we tried to stop the Toclafane invasion. The only one of us he didn’t catch was Martha there. One long miserable year later, we stopped him, and time reset itself.”

Donna glances up at the ceiling and sighs. “Doctor. That was too short.”

“Fine!” the Doctor huffs. “Look, there are a lot of ways to muck about with Time Lord physiology. I also really don’t ever want to be physically nine hundred years old ever again, because at that point, gravity is pain.” She lets out a frustrated sigh. “And now I’ve gone and done it twice now, but at least the second time I did it the normal years-passing way. Anyway, I used that energy you two recognized,” the Doctor points at Aziraphale and Crowley, “to put myself back together, and oh, yes, with Marth and Jack’s help, we kept him from bringing the Toclafane through. That caused a paradox that meant the year reset itself, mostly no harm done.” She tilts her head. “I don’t think anyone was all that upset about the U.S. president’s assassination, though. I never heard much fuss about it. At least his replacement in their next election was a decent bloke.”

Israfil holds up his hand. “Look, can we…can we maybe go back to the really short version of whatever this is? Because I don’t know what the hell any of you are talking about anymore, and I don’t have the context to understand even half of it.”

“Same,” Adam mutters. “Don’t think Anathema would be half so happy, knowin’ aliens were real, if she were about right now to listen to this.”

“Evil aliens are the exception, not the rule. I just have a bad habit of tripping over the ones who are up to no good,” the Doctor protests.

“Let’s go back to the part where you explain how the Master is alive again,” Jack suggests. “You burnt him to ash, Doc.”

“Right, yeah.” The Doctor scrubs at her hair. “The Master was clever, and he was paranoid. He always had a failsafe. This wasn’t actually the first time he’d cheated death, though the first time, it was the High Council’s fault. They wanted the Master to help fight in the Time War, but when the Master saw how awful it truly was…no, not getting into that, too complicated. Failsafe: in this particular instance, the Master was stupid enough to tell his wife about it. She and a bunch of other idiots brought him back to life in order to kill him off for good. Which, really, if that was their goal, they could have just thrown the failsafe into an active volcano and saved themselves from a rather messy death, but that’s bad planning for you.”

“So…what happened?” Mickey asks.

“The weird face thing, Christmas 2009, that’s what!” Donna says, snapping her fingers in excitement as she points at the Doctor. “I thought I’d hallucinated that bit of nuttery, but it was him, wasn’t it?”

“Do you have _any _idea what’s going on, my dear?” Aziraphale asks Crowley in a soft voice.

Crowley shrugs. “I’m pretty certain we’re listening to further proof of why we should continue to drink our way through Christmas, angel.”

“He was a bit madder that go-round, but to be fair…” The Doctor looks frustrated. “Martha, Jack, you remember the rabies allegory?”

Martha and Jack exchange pensive looks. “Yeah,” Jack says. “We do.”

“So, I was really, really, one-hundred-percent correct on it, just without the how,” the Doctor says. “It was a repeating pattern in his head, just like that bloody sound repeating through the Archangel network.”

“Wait, that bloody four-beat repetition hiding under the signal noise?” Crowley scowls. “I couldn’t even use my bloody mobile that year.”

“But it was more than sound,” the Doctor continues. “It was buried instructions. Rassilon implanted bloody lunacy in the head of an eight-year-old child because he wanted the Time War to be unlocked, and when that stupid lot revived the Master _again_, obeying those instructions is exactly what the Master tried to do.”

“Oh, my God,” Martha whispers. “That would have been—”

“Lunacy? Yep,” the Doctor agrees. “That is just one of many reasons I briefly took over my own planet’s government. Just hung about long enough to banish Rassilon from ever returning to Gallifrey, and then nope, done, no more of this. By the way, this is why I was trying to keep it at a short story!”

Martha still looks horrified. “Why did you call him friend again, though? Because I have to say, it would take a lot more than ‘Hey, long time no see, sorry I tried to murder everything you loved!’ for me to be that forgiving.”

“When Rassilon was about to break the Time Lock on Gallifrey, there were a few moments when our reality was overlaid with that pocket reality—which, yes, the Earth would have been destroyed, everything would have been terrible, but that’s long over and done with.”

The Doctor glances up at the ceiling for a moment. Crowley can see a resurgence of fire in her eyes, the rage Donna had captured in the video Wilf shared with them a few days back. “I’d just ruined Rassilon’s means of doing it. He was rather not so fond of me already, mostly because I kept trying to end the Time War, and Rassilon kept trying to prolong it because he’s a sodding narcissist bastard,” the Doctor spits, and then draws in a deep breath. “So, me wrecking his little plot was pretty much the last straw. He was going to kill me, and I was…”

Whatever the Doctor was going to say, she skips it. “The Master saved my life. He stepped across that boundary onto Gallifrey before it ceased to exist on this plane. From what I was told later, he caused Rassilon to regenerate at least twice before anyone could really be bothered to stop him.”

“And he probably vaccinated himself against that rabid infection Rassilon gave him in the process,” Jack realizes.

The Doctor nods. “The next time I saw the Master, he’d regenerated. The Mistress. Missy for short. And yeah, her head was clear. No more rabies; no more of those sodding loud drums. It took Missy a bit to figure out she wasn’t dancing to someone else’s nonsense any longer, and when she did…” The Doctor hesitates. “For the first time since we were kids, she tried to be better. I mean, she really, actually tried.

“I don’t know if that’s still true. I don’t know if she regenerated again and went straight back to her old habits. My last regeneration was a bit of a mess. I lost track of her, can’t remember a bloody thing about the last few minutes of it all. But she tried. Missy literally let me lock her up for a century so it was just us, talking, trying to figure out a way to go forward. She tried.”

Jack looks as if he’s trying to be sympathetic and can’t quite make it there. “Okay, last thing, and then we can go back to worrying about the _other _powerful asshole trying to kill us. What I’m getting out of this, problems with the Master aside, is that Gallifrey isn’t time-locked anymore. The Time War isn’t locked away.”

“No, it’s not,” the Doctor says. “The Time War was ended, but that wasn’t enough. Gallifrey isn’t time-locked anymore, but the planet is being hidden about a thousand years off from the heat death of the universe.”

Martha frowns. “Why would they be hiding if the war is over?”

“Because the Time War ruined our reputation,” the Doctor explains. The anger is banked again, but there is no mistaking the frustration that replaces it. “The Time War threatened half the known universe, and still Rassilon would not stop. It didn’t take very long before Time Lords were despised just as much as the Daleks. If people knew Gallifrey had returned to the place it had originally left, a fleet unlike anything anyone has ever known would have converged upon my planet and turned it into dust. I didn’t save my people just to let that happen. The Time Lords might be the ruling power, but there are over a hundred billion people on Gallifrey who don’t deserve to die for the decisions Rassilon and the High Council made.”

“So, people hate Time Lords,” Mickey says. “You never seemed to have that problem, though.”

“That’s because the Doctor is the man who fought back.” Rose glances down at her own clasped hands. “The Doctor is the war hero that everyone remembers, because he’s the man who stood up and said: _No more_. The Doctor is the man who burned Gallifrey to the ground just to spare everyone else, and the universe never forgot what he did to save them. But, when you’ve got four hundred years to give things a good thinking over afterwards…”

“You do something different, and twenty-four billion children live to see another day,” the Doctor finishes quietly. She plants a kiss on Rose’s cheek. “I just needed my conscience there with me, is all.”

“Not sure that counts as a conscience so much as just doing a bit of cheating,” Rose counters. “Besides, didn’t you say you were going to kiss me once you figured out the bit about storing an entire planet inside a pocket dimension?”

The Doctor’s expression lights up as she smiles with her entire being. “I might’ve mentioned that, yeah.” Then she wraps her arms around Rose and does exactly that.

“Now look, see, where was this sort of thing back when _we _were dating?” Mickey asks Rose. Martha glares at him and then punches him hard in the arm. “Oi, I was kidding!”

Crowley lifts his head, tongue darting out to scent the air. “Oh, hello,” he says, glad for the well-timed distraction. There are far too many _feelings_ happening in Aziraphale’s bookshop right now, and he’d like to be far, far away from them.

“Rotting wet stone.” Israfil glances at him. “You want a crack at them, or shall I do it?”

“Oh, no. This one is all for me.” Crowley reached into the ether and pulled another cricket bat forth. Convenient things, cricket bats. “What happened to the last cricket bat I gave you?”

Israfil smiles. “I gave it to Pepper.”

Crowley rests the new cricket bat over his shoulder. “That was either the smartest thing you’ve ever done, or the stupidest. Excuse me, you lot. I need to go…negotiate.”

“Negotiate with what?” the Doctor asks, standing up. She reaches down and pulls Rose up with her, who manages to stay on her feet without too much wobbling.

“Fourteen constructs. You call them Weeping Angels,” Crowley answers.

“Fifteen,” Israfil corrects.

“Hmm. Yeah. Missed that one.” Crowley gives Aziraphale a quick glance. _Be right back._

_You’d better, this time,_ Aziraphale replies, some of his earlier fear and worry leaking through. _I am not doing that again twice in one day._

_Promise you won’t._ Crowley heads for the bookshop’s front door. “This will just take a moment. You lot stay inside the building.”

“You are not seriously going out there to deal with fifteen Weeping Angels all by yourself!” Martha says, stepping into his path. Donna, Crowley notices, has wisely taken several steps back, dragging Jack with her. He knew he liked her for a reason.

Crowley stares down at Martha, knowing the affect it has on a human even with his sunglasses in the way. “Do me a favor. Don’t tell me how to do my job, especially when you don’t even know what that job is.” He jerks his thumb over his shoulder at the Doctor. “I don’t care what you’re used to seeing on that Doctor’s face. I’m not her, and I’m _not_ nice.”

“Donna and Jack said you were a healer,” Mickey comments, but at least he isn’t stupidly trying to get in Crowley’s way.

“If Healers were nice, nothing would ever get fixed,” Crowley retorts, pushing rudely past Martha. “Adam, make them stay in the bookshop, please. I’d hate for someone to melt because they’re too stubborn to listen.”

Adam tilts his head and shrugs. “Okay. Don’t you go and get discorporated again.”

“Nope.” Crowley pushes the door open, the bell jingling, and lets it shut behind him. He can feel the others rushing up just as Adam puts a very nice barricade in their way.

He turns around to regard the Doctor, Martha, Mickey, Adam, Jack, Donna, Aziraphale, and Rose. Israfil is leaning on his staff, idly watching the show. Aziraphale looks a bit worried, but he’s had six thousand years to get used to Crowley’s stupid dramatics.

Crowley glances at Adam, holds up his hand, and mimes something coming down. Adam nods in recognition and then blacks out all the glass in the front of the shop.

“All right, angels!” Crowley yells, striding out into the middle of the street. “Your maker isn’t here right now! It’s just me, and we need to have a chat. Look; I’ll even close my eyes.” He pulls off his glasses to demonstrate that his eyes are shut.

He can feel them all approaching, swift and silent. Deadly, if you were mortal and let one pull you too far into the past.

Crowley opens his eyes to the sight of fourteen angel constructs frozen in front of him. Their arms are outstretched, claws bared, teeth visible. “You all look a bit pissed off. Why is that?”

Anyone human who’s ever dealt with a Weeping Angel will say that they don’t speak, that they make no sounds. Crowley would tell them that they’re just not capable of hearing it.

-We serve our Creator.-

-You are the Creator’s enemy.-

-You will be taken far from here.-

-You will not reach back.-

-Our Creator will succeed.-

-You will not be in time to stop him.-

-Why will you not blink?-

Crowley grins at that last construct’s petulance, sliding his glasses back on while keeping his eyes on them. “I don’t need to blink. I’m just out here because I think it’s a bit more sporting if I give you a warning. Just one warning, mind you. Only one.”

-What is your warning?-

-Speak it.-

-Then we will take you from this place.-

-Speak!-

“Oh, I see. Samael doesn’t seem to have made certain you were properly introduced to who you were dealing with. Let me take care of that.” Crowley lowers the cricket bat and stares them down.

“I am Zaherael, last named of the First Seven. Earth is my dominion. I know you’re just constructs, but even constructs like it when they continue to exist, so here’s your warning: get the _fuck_ off of my planet.”

-We will not.-

-We serve our Creator.-

“Your creator isn’t here to save you. Get the fuck off my planet, never come back, and you get to continue to exist.” Crowley pauses. “Last chance.”

None of them move. Behind him, Crowley can hear the one who does. Lucky number fifteen.

“That was so very stupid of you,” he murmurs. With a thought, he calls fire down from the sky.

The angel construct is closer than Crowley realized. The lightning strike electrifies Crowley’s nerves and makes his bloody hair stand on end. The accompanying boom deafens him; the light temporarily blinds him into blinking to save his vision.

The scent of ozone is overwhelming. Then it begins to drift away, leaving the smell of burnt rotting rock and a hot sulfuric tang in its wake.

The constructs didn’t take advantage of Crowley’s uncontrolled blinking to move closer. They backed away, instead. Fear is etched over their stone faces.

Crowley hefts the cricket bat again and smiles. “So! How many of you still want to hang about?” He can’t hear his own voice over the ringing in his ears, but he can feel the vibration of it in his throat.

He doesn’t have to blink, not this time. The angel constructs can’t move when they’re stared at, but they can still teleport. All fourteen of them vanish in the same moment.

Crowley sniffs the air again, tasting it for good measure. Aside from the burnt scents, there isn’t a hint of rotting stone anywhere in Soho. “Guess you lot have gotten smarter over the millennia,” he says, and turns around.

The construct Crowley destroyed is half-rubble, half-melted stone slag in the street. One jagged, broken arm is still reaching in Crowley’s direction. Sharp edges of stone fused into jagged bits of glass. The dead construct is a lot closer to the bookshop than Crowley expected, which makes him grimace. Not only is Adam’s blackout effect and human roadblock gone, but all of the shopfront’s glass is webbed with cracks.

The people who Crowley wanted to remain _inside_ the bloody bookshop have now crowded their way out onto the walkway. Great. That’s one alien and a bunch of nosy humans who can read his expressions, who also don’t know how to follow basic directions. Just what he always wanted to deal with while trying to rid the Earth of a major demonic threat.

Adam gives Crowley an apologetic look. _Sorry. The lightning startled me, and I dropped everything._

_S’fine_, Crowley replies, giving up. _Nobody died. Well, except for the construct._

Martha looks at Crowley and speaks. He’s almost certain he’s translating it right, but he’s out of practice at lip-reading. He hasn’t really needed the skill since World War II.

Crowley shakes his head, switches to British Sign Language, and says, “Wait a moment, I can’t hear you.” Then he points at his ear for good measure, scowling.

Martha tilts her head back in surprise before responding in BSL. “We could all hear what you said, even if we didn’t see most of it. What are the First Seven?”

“Don’t they teach you lot any decent theology anymore?” Crowley retorts, and then puts his hands back to his ears. He knows how to fix this. He did it often enough in the trenches during World War I before he managed to get out of that literally hellish assignment. He has the ringing mostly under control before Israfil comes over and helps him finish the job, which ends in a sharp pop that makes Crowley swear under his breath.

“Punctured ear drum. Good job,” Israfil says, gripping Crowley’s shoulder. “Why lightning, Brother?”

Crowley wiggles his jaw until his ears pop again. “I was actually trying for fire.”

Israfil snorts. “You missed. You have a lightning pattern down the back of your jacket, by the way.”

“Oh, bloody hell.” Crowley twists his head around to see the beginning of the bleached outline of a lightning flash running down the back of his black jacket. _Now_ he can smell the burnt silk odor that was lurking beneath all of the other scents. “Actually, that looks pretty cool.”

“Yeah?” Israfil slaps him on the back, causing Crowley to hiss out another round of vicious swearing. “Congratulations. It’s a skin-deep impression.”

“Fuck you, too,” Crowley gasps. The burns on his back don’t hurt nearly as much as Falling, or pools of burning sulfur. That doesn’t make it bloody pleasant, though.

“Oh, is it a proper Lichtenberg figure?” Aziraphale asks as he snaps his fingers. The cracked storefront of the bookshop repairs itself with the faint chime unique to older pane glass.

“Probably,” Israfil answers as Crowley says, “Next time you get struck by lightning, I’m slapping _you_.”

“All right, forget my first question,” Martha interrupts. “What did you mean, Earth is your dominion? You make it sound like you own this planet!”

“Own—no!” Crowley resists the urge to rest his face in his hands, but the feel of Israfil healing the lightning-caused burns on his back is too bloody distracting. “That’s not what it means—okay, no, in human terms, yeah, dominion came to mean ruling over a thing, but that’s not how _we_ use the term. A dominion to a Celestial is the home you’ve been assigned to protect. You’d protect your home, right?”

Martha nods in wry agreement. “Yeah. My home and everyone living in it.”

“There you go,” Crowley says. “Same thing.”

“Would’ve been nice if you’d done something about the Daleks, then. Maybe even the Cybermen.” Those aren’t accusations Mickey is voicing. He’s only fishing, but Crowley can appreciate that. He’s just not in the mood to give any of them the entire answer.

“The Weeping Angel constructs were made by Samael when he still held the ability to create, so they fall under our…” Crowley frowns and tries to find the right word. “Jurisdiction. Robots and fucking roaming pepper pots with lasers? Not our jurisdiction, much as I really wanted them to _go_ _away_.”

“Daleks,” Donna corrects him.

Crowley rolls his eyes. “Whatever.”

Martha looks over at the Doctor, who is kneeling and prodding at the dead construct. Crowley suspects it might be stuck to the street. “You think that’s why they tried to take the TARDIS back before all the Toclafane nonsense, Doctor?”

“Rose and I had already met Samael. It’s possible.” The Doctor stands up. “You call them constructs. They’re alive, but it’s only programming. That’s what you mean, yeah?”

“Yes.” Israfil reaches out and wraps his arm around Adam’s shoulders. He still understands what people need so intuitively, whereas Crowley can barely figure out his own head. “They’re a leftover from the War among our people, right around when things started to get bad. They were more dangerous then. Time didn’t work the same way it does now. The angel constructs wouldn’t take their victims back in time to let them age to death. They took them back to a moment when Creation itself didn’t yet exist. There is no coming back from that.”

“Blades existed from the beginning. Spears existed. Staffs.” Crowley tilts his head at Israfil’s staff. “But all of those are creations that can be used to defend others, not just to kill. The angel constructs were the first weapons created whose sole purpose was destruction.”

“It’s a trick, isn’t it?” Adam suddenly says. “When that one angel in Hogback Wood looked like it was afraid. It wasn’t really afraid. It’s just programming.”

Israfil nods. “They don’t actually feel anything. They can only do what they were designed for.”

“You all right, Doctor?” Rose asks. Jack has her pinned to his side, as if he’s afraid to let go.

“I don’t like killing. But…” The Doctor sighs. “Crowley warned them, and they understood what the warning meant. I just don’t like it. I don’t like it when that’s the only way.”

Crowley feels a _very_ annoying squirm of guilt. “You do realize that’s how it has to be for Samael, right? There is no other way.”

The Doctor nods. “Yeah. He’d just find a way out if he was imprisoned again. He’d never stop.”

“Not the sort of bloke who can be reasoned with then?” Mickey asks.

“No. He’s always gloried in what he is, and what he does to others.” Israfil glances at Crowley, who glares back. They are _not_ having that discussion right now. “It’s either stop Samael for good, or watch everyone else suffer.”

The Doctor flinches at those words, but it’s Rose who understands. “Doctor. Hey.” Rose waits until the Doctor is looking at her. “This isn’t the big red button. It’s not the same thing. Kind of the opposite, really.”

“How do you know about the big red button? Truly?” the Doctor asks. “How, Rose?”

“Well…” Rose glances up at Jack. “If the captain here is a fixed point in time, then I’m the opposite. He’s only in one place. I’m everywhere at once.” Rose’s smile is self-deprecation on a level with Aziraphale. “Gotta say, the migraines that causes sometimes are bloody terrible.”

“Everywhere at once.” The Doctor looks pained. “Then Samael knows how this will turn out. He already knows what to expect.”

“Maybe he does.” Rose’s wryness becomes a smirk. “Or maybe he only thinks he does. This isn’t exactly a fixed point, now, is it?”

The Doctor looks startled before she smiles. “No! It’s not. Not in the slightest—oh, wiggle room. I love it!”

Aziraphale meets Crowley’s eyes. “Wiggle room. Samael doesn’t know about the prophecy. He doesn’t know what those secrets are. We didn’t mention either of those things in front of dear Rose when Samael was still present.”

Crowley raises both eyebrows. “That’s convenient.” He glances over his shoulder, feeling justifiably paranoid. “Let’s go back inside. If we’re discussing any of this, it’s not going to be out in the street.”

“The wards. Yes. Excellent point.” Aziraphale ushers Martha and Mickey inside, followed by Jack and Rose, Donna, Israfil and Adam. That leaves Crowley out on the street, alone with the Doctor. Maybe he’s not really great at a Healer’s understanding any longer, but he can sure as hell feel it when someone gives him a firm mental nudge.

“I didn’t want to ask in front of the others, especially not Adam,” the Doctor says in explanation. “What is Samael doing with all of that power? Well, not all of it. But lurking in front of a black hole would have given him…”

“Opportunities, yeah.” Crowley rests the cricket bat over his shoulder. “He’s most likely building himself another body. A big one.”

“Hoped you wouldn’t say that.” The Doctor bounces on her toes, but the expression on her face is concentration, not excitement. “If that new body is anything like the physical body I saw in the Pit, he could do a lot of damage with that. Easily.”

“Yep.”

The Doctor glances up at him. “How long until he comes back?”

“He’ll want to make an entrance. He’ll want to be noticed.” Crowley considers it. “He’s also old-fashioned enough to want to keep certain traditions in mind. I’d wager on dawn.”

“Dawn.” The Doctor bounces on her toes again. Crowley should find that annoying, but he doesn’t. He gets what it’s like to have too much energy and not enough to do with it. “It’s almost nine o’clock right now. Dawn’s at 4:57 in the morning. Bit under eight hours isn’t much time to figure out a way to stop him.”

Crowley smiles. “You said it yourself. A lot can happen in four hours.”

“Oh, you’ve gotten cheeky in three thousand years.” The Doctor grins back. “Maybe even in just five minutes, right?”

“Maybe,” Crowley concedes. He had less time than that to stop the end of the fucking Apocalypse. “Come on. Let’s go inside before something worse happens, like those pepper pots turning up.”

“Daleks.”

“Still don’t care.” Crowley pauses. “The face thing. Is that bothering you? Not too weird?”

He can feel the Doctor’s honesty when she answers him. “Not in the least.”

Aziraphale gains Crowley’s attention the moment the door is closed behind them. Crowley snaps his fingers and locks it for good measure. “Do we have a reprieve of any sort, my dear?”

“Yeah,” Crowley answers. “Probably about eight hours of one.”

“Excellent.” Aziraphale breathes out in relief and then claps his hands to gain everyone’s attention. “I am making this official: _we need a break_. Also, none of us have had dinner.”

Adam perks up at once. “Oh, please, can we? I didn’t get lunch. I’ve been pilfering all of your biscuits!”

“Pizza?” Jack suggests.

Crowley makes a face and pulls out his mobile. The idea of trying to eat that much greasy cheese is abhorrent. Then he glares down at the screen, which is dark, miniscule cracks running over the glass. “Right. Lightning.” He turns the mobile over in his hand, feels out the damage, and then flips it again to reveal a working screen and a distinct lack of cracks. “Better.”

“That’d be so bloody amazing,” the Doctor says, peering over his shoulder at his mobile while Crowley scrolls down to the C-section in his contact list. “I mean, I like to repair things with my hands, but in a rush—convenient.”

Crowley looks up at the maths. “You understand that, yeah? Including the energy to matter conversion?”

“Course I do,” the Doctor says. “I helped to bloody fix it.”

Crowley grins at her. “Then what’s stopping you?” he asks, and then dials the number.

“We’re closed, mate,” is the first thing Crowley hears after the server’s greeting message.

“Two hundred pound tip for takeaway delivery,” Crowley says. “Same for anyone who hangs about in the kitchen long enough to fill the order properly.”

There’s a distinct pause. “We are so bloody open, new friend. I’m Jan, what can we get for you, and where are we taking it?”

“Literally one of everything,” Crowley tells them. “Well, not the fizzy nonsense. But everything else, yeah. You’re delivering to A.Z. Fell’s place.”

“Whoa. Feeding a party in that bookshop, mate?” Jan asks.

“More like herding cats.” Crowley glances at Aziraphale. “Fuck it; triple down on the dessert. I don’t want to see a war break out over that.”

“Literally one of everything, three of the desert, bookshop delivery, got it.” Jan sounds thrilled. Given the _Go Home_ nudge Israfil and Aziraphale flooded into Soho to keep everyone off the streets and safe, it’s probably the only business the grill has seen tonight. “That’ll be about thirty minutes. It’d normally take longer, but the roads and crowds have been dead tonight.”

Crowley grimaces at Jan’s choice of words. “I already have a card on file with you lot. Anthony Crowley, the authorization PIN is 421.”

“Yeah, hold on.” A moment later, Jan squeaks. “Black AMex? No shit?”

“No shit. Just bring me something to sign off on.”

“You got it!” Jan rings off, but not before Crowley hears their faint shout of, “YOU LOT WILL _NOT_ BELIEVE THIS!”

By the time Crowley locks his mobile again, the entire day hits him like a brick wall. He tosses his phone at Israfil, who catches it and gives him an expectant look. “If they call back with a problem, pretend to be me and fix it. Not like that’ll be difficult.”

“You all right?” Rose asks, once again reading him like a bloody open book. Dammit.

“Yeah, fine. I just haven’t slept in over six months, and…” That’s exactly when Crowley runs out of words. “Things.”

Aziraphale shakes his head and comes over to gently take his hand. “Come along, dear,” he says, leading Crowley straight into the welcoming darkness of the back room. There is a fire burning low in the hearth that Aziraphale immediately calls back into being a bright flame. “I can wake you when the food gets here, if you like.”

“Yeah. S’fine,” Crowley mutters, taking his glasses off and blinking. Whenever he goes too long without sleeping, bright light starts to hurt. Even the firelight is almost too much. He drops the sunglasses onto a table and turns his face away from the flame.

Aziraphale tuts at him and then helps Crowley to remove his jacket and scarf, stripping him down to his denims and the maroon t-shirt he’d been wearing in deference to the afternoon heat. “You need to rest, dear. At some point after your rest, you might want to consider finding shoes again.”

“Zira…” Crowley hates that his voice emerges as a pathetic whine.

“I’m surprised you made it this long without needing a nap of some sort,” is Aziraphale’s mild response. “You don’t need to do everything, my dear. For once, we’re surrounded by people who are as competent as we are.”

“You mean we’re all going to fuck up, and still manage to fix it anyway,” Crowley says.

Aziraphale chuckles and rests his hand on the back of Crowley’s neck. “Quite possibly, yes.” He kisses Crowley with as much gentleness as he’d removed his clothes, and then stays close, foreheads pressed together, so their breath mingles. “It’s so good to have you back. I missed you.”

“Missed you for a lot longer,” Crowley replies, his voice cracking. “God, I really did.”

Aziraphale smiles. “We’ll trade off next time, then.”

Crowley leans back to stare at him in abject horror. “Angel, no. That’s a terrible idea. I’m the one who still has a lot of bad habits, and I’d—I’d burn down everything in my way just to get to you.”

“Hmm.” Aziraphale brushes his fingers along Crowley’s face, still smiling. “Do you really think that if a solution had not presented itself, I wouldn’t have done the same?”

“Okay…yeah, point,” Crowley admits. “Speaking of: where did you get another flaming sword?”

“Oh. I borrowed it,” Aziraphale says breezily.

“Borrowed it.” Crowley narrows his eyes. “From where?”

“The armory Upstairs.”

“Uh huh.” Crowley presses another kiss against Aziraphale’s lips. “You’ve spent too much time with me. _Borrowed it_, he says. When did that bit of borrowing take place?”

Aziraphale all but purrs against him, he’s so pleased with himself. “Oh, a few months ago.”

“A few months ago.” Crowley starts laughing and rests his head on Aziraphale’s shoulder. “Really, angel?”

Aziraphale wraps his arms around Crowley and pulls him into a close embrace. “Well, it’s not like anyone noticed it was gone.”


	14. Bad Wolf

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Then there is Crowley and his brother Israfil—Samael called them Zaherael and Raphael, which is just bloody _weird_—who happen to look just like perfectly ginger versions of the Time Lord she fell in love with. Well, his second face. She was already sodding in love with him before the Doctor suddenly introduced regeneration into Rose’s life. Also, they look just like the mostly-human Time Lord duplicate of the alien she’d married.
> 
> Okay, so throwing stones at the blokes with the angel names is probably silly, all things considered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I re-wrote the end of this chapter so many times because it WAS NOT RIGHT. It took me DAYS to figure out what was wrong, and I wasn't going to post it until I was happy with it. 
> 
> Sometimes brains do not cooperate the way we want them to.
> 
> (All blunders that turn up are mine; I miss having official beta readers, but they're busy and I'm so tired of re-reading the last few pages that I'll find any typos later.)

Rose is having one of the worst days of her life, but it’s also one of the best. The shite part was the bit where the worst stuff just kept repeating, over and over again. She was screaming for Samael to get out of her head right at the start, but by the time Friday was on its third repeat, she was also screaming in frustration. There is only so much egotistical megalomania she can stomach before it’s just too bloody much.

The good part is the bit where Samael is _gone_.

Rose is furious that Samael got more from her than she could get from him. She didn’t survive this long without figuring out that the more you knew, the more chances you had. That had been one of the Doctor’s first lessons, even if he demonstrated it instead of saying it.

Once she’d realized she couldn’t keep Samael out, she started tossing up treats in her head, like she would for a puppy, just to keep everything else buried below, away from the bastard’s notice. Fixed points in time. How _much_ of time there really was. What the Bad Wolf really meant. Instead, she gave him things about the Doctor, bits that would never matter for anyone else to know, which Samael took and consumed as if they were the keys to his victory.

Rose still doesn’t feel like she fits in her own skin after having to share it with that bastard, but each breath she takes, every step she takes, makes things better. They’re her breaths, her steps. She wasn’t sure until Crowley pulled them all into bloody _space _if they’d only be hers ever again.

Crowley was right when he called Samael pathetic. Doesn’t make him any less dangerous, though. He’s like the Daleks or the Cybermen or any number of conquerors: he’s got a set goal in mind, and he’s not stopping until he’s done it.

Then there is Crowley and his brother Israfil—Samael called them Zaherael and Raphael, which is just bloody _weird_—who happen to look just like perfectly ginger versions of the Time Lord she fell in love with. Well, his second face. She was already sodding in love with him before the Doctor suddenly introduced regeneration into Rose’s life. Also, they look just like the mostly-human Time Lord duplicate of the alien she’d married.

Okay, so throwing stones at the blokes with the angel names is probably silly, all things considered.

“I feel like I’m still covered in slime,” Rose says, and doesn’t even realize she spoke the words aloud until Donna gives her a nudge.

“There’s a shower upstairs, girl. Come on with me. I need to check on Granddad, anyway.”

“Wilf’s still doing all right?” Rose smiles. “I’m glad.”

“You met my granddad?” Donna asks in surprise as she leads Rose through the shop.

“Oh. Right. He wouldn’t have been able to tell you after, would he?” Rose sighs. “Yeah. I was lookin’ for you during that bit with the twenty-seven kidnapped planets, and I stopped by your granddad and your mum’s house. It was so frustrating, watching that video chat happen. Webcams are naughty, my backside.”

Donna smiles a bit as they head to the darkened rear of the shop, where Rose can just make out a staircase. “Mum never changed her mind about that, either. Bit ridiculous. It’s almost like she forgot that porn was printed before it was put on the internet.”

Rose finds herself giggling and then abruptly stifles the sound as she realizes that Crowley is sprawled out on a sofa in the darkened back parlor-sort of room. Looking at that man’s face—and Israfil’s—is still really bloody odd. Crowley is asleep, currently wearing nothing except a t-shirt and denims, which actually manages to make things even more odd than they already were.

Aziraphale is kneeling in front of the sofa, staring at Crowley as if he’s the answer to everything. It makes Rose feel like she’s witnessing something sacred, and intruding along with it.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to make so much noise,” Rose says, and Donna nods in apology.

“It’s all right.” Aziraphale gives Crowley’s hair a brief touch before standing. “He is very much asleep for now, and didn’t hear a bit of it. Did you need anything, my dear?”

Rose’s eyes try to start watering at the endearment, which doesn’t sound forced or false at all. “Donna was showing me where your shower was. S’all right if I borrow it?”

Aziraphale approaches her, and it’s hard to resist the urge to step back. Angels, Celestials, whatever they wanted to call themselves, that part doesn’t matter. She can feel that he’s powerful, and it makes her a bit nervous. There’s still too much of Samael’s impulses in her head, maybe, or just good survival instincts.

Aziraphale’s gaze softens, and all at once his blue eyes seem entirely kind. “You feel like he tainted you.”

“A bit, yeah. It’s a slimy feeling,” Rose admits.

Aziraphale nods and holds out his hand. “Then the flowing water of a shower is an excellent idea, but I can help you to feel…well. Less slimy, I suppose.”

“He doesn’t bite. It’s Tetchy over there who does that,” Donna says when Rose hesitates.

Rose tells herself she’s being silly and accepts Aziraphale’s hand. She doesn’t feel anything except a cool touch to her head that’s not like water at all, but that’s the closest word she’s got. It’s also psychic, not physical, but still: soothing water.

“Better?” Aziraphale asks, a faint smile on his face.

“Bit less slimy, yeah,” Rose answers. “What did you do?”

“A blessing.” Aziraphale’s smile widens when Rose stares at him. “If it makes you feel any better, consider it in terms of my abilities canceling out whatever Samael left behind.”

“Right.” Rose smiles back, because it’s polite, and she isn’t certain what else to do. “Thanks for that, then.”

“You’re quite welcome.”

When they go upstairs, Rose finds herself in a flat that is just as crammed with books as the shop, with a bit of antique clutter mixed in. Donna stops long enough to enter a room that doesn’t match the rest of the flat at all, where Wilf is sleeping in a hospital-style bed. To Rose’s eyes, that bed is as familiar as it is _very_ outdated.

“He’s all right, isn’t he?”

“Oh, yeah, and out like a light.” Donna sighs in relief. “But he’s perking up again, and I’m glad. Come on, you. Shower’s this way.”

The bathroom looks like someone couldn’t figure out if it was the 1850s or the 1950s. “Trust me, I know.” Donna grins at her when she notices Rose’s expression. “Plumbing is all up to date, though, and there is a fabulous filter on that water somewhere. It’s like spring water instead of London’s finest tap. I have my stuff on a shelf in the shower. Feel free to borrow whatever you need.”

Rose reaches out and hugs Donna, because why not? “Thanks.”

“Thank you for coming back,” Donna whispers in her ear. “We all heard what she said; the Doctor’s been a nutter without you.”

Rose nods. She’s a bit worried about that part, but it’s something to talk about later. “The Doctor is a nutter even _with_ us.”

“That she is. He is. They are.” Donna rolls her eyes. “That’s gonna take some getting used to. I can’t even call her sunshine anymore; it doesn’t fit!”

Rose grins. “You’ll figure something out.”

The water is just as nice as Donna promised. It’s_ soft _on her skin, which is amazing. The showerhead spits a bit around the edges, but the temperature is perfect. She lets water run through her hair and over her face, where it mingles with the stupid, stupid tears that don’t want to stop now that she’s alone.

She did so much. She worked so hard to come home…and she nearly mucked it all up anyway. Even knowing it’s not her fault doesn’t really help. Mucked. It. Up.

Samael hadn’t helped out her body in any fashion, since he hadn’t planned on letting her live. Rose opens her mouth and drinks in shower water that really does taste like it’s from a completely unpolluted spring until she feels a lot less parched. Complete nutter bastard. She only feels a little bit bad that she wants Samael dead. He tried to kill her first, after all.

Donna’s shampoo and whatnot all smell too flowery. Rose used to like that sort, but the moment she figured out the Doctor had a sensitive nose, she stuck to neutrals, or things that were made with only hints of natural scents. Even when it wasn’t necessary anymore, the habit stayed.

She peruses the other bottles and glassware to find soap with a coal tar base. She hasn’t seen anything like that in ages, but the scent of it washes clean away. It’s not exactly the best quality sort of thing, but it’ll certainly help her to scrub off a few layers of skin.

She doesn’t need to shave; hasn’t in years. There are perks to time travel, and the moment Rose discovered those options, she basked in the glory of never needing to shave her legs ever again.

Rose nearly jumps out of her skin when the bathroom door all but slams open and shuts again. She crosses her arms over her breasts and groin on instinct and then lets out an irritated huff as she glares through the shower’s glass panel door. “You still don’t have any manners?”

“You’re just showering!” the Doctor responds, still with that same expression of bafflement when it comes to nudity that’s not related to sex. “Besides, that lot downstairs forgot the towels were out in the cupboard, not in here. Told Donna I’d bring you one.”

“Bloody manners,” Rose growls under her breath. “Thank you, Doctor.”

The Doctor blinks a few times. “Oh! Oh. Right. We’re doing that.” She turns around. “It’s not like I’ve never seen you naked before!”

“I’m still getting used to the fact that you went with breasts this go-round!” Rose shoots back. All at once instead of tears, she’s fighting back a relieved grin. “Maybe you can let me get used to this face of yours before we jump straight into naked. Or bed,” she adds.

The Doctor groans. “I deserved that reminder, I know I did.” There is a pause while Rose buries her head under the flow of water, the noise of the shower hiding words from her ears. “I’ve already asked a few times, but are you all right? Because I’m not going to pretend I didn’t notice the crying.”

“It’s just leftover crying, promise,” Rose says, which is true. “I mean, it’ll probably happen a few more times just because of what Samael did. Then there’ll be other bits of crying. I’ll get through it.”

“Not alone,” the Doctor refutes. “Well. Unless you want the alone-ness. I can do either.”

“I’m really a bit sick of being alone,” Rose whispers, and then tries to ignore the fact that she said it. “Oh, hey. Does that new sonic screwdriver of yours still have the setting that helps with bruises?”

“Haven’t the faintest idea. No one’s needed that yet, not really, and it’s an entirely new model. I had to build it from scratch. Ended up stuck in 2018 up in Sheffield without the TARDIS, so my sonic’s a bit different from standard. I rather like it, though. Wait, where are you bruised and why?”

Rose makes certain all of the soap is entirely rinsed away before answering. Maximum word output from her Doctor is definitely still a thing. “I was being a bit literal when I said I landed in Cornwall. I’ll turn around to show you, but don’t you go and distract yourself by ogling my bum.”

“I can totally ogle without being distracted. Maybe. I actually haven’t tried that yet,” the Doctor is saying as Rose turns around.

Rose faces the old white tile that lines this side of the shower wall and smiles at the babble. “Go ahead and look.”

The Doctor is quiet for a moment. “Does it hurt?”

“A bit, yeah.” Rose tries not to jump again when gentle fingers start to prod around the bruise. She knows it’s a big one, but Samael wasn’t much concerned with mirrors, either. “How bad is it?”

“It’s all over your hips and halfway up your back, Rose,” the Doctor murmurs. “I can do you one better than a sonic, though.”

Rose is about to ask what the Doctor means when she feels her skin gain extra warmth that isn’t from the water. The sensation is already over and done with by the time she gasps in reaction. It felt amazing, wonderful, and familiar. She turns her head to look over her shoulder, wet hair plastering itself to her face. “What’d you go and do?”

The Doctor is holding up her right hand, her fingers still glowing a bit at the tips with golden light. “I’ve gotten better at pointing regeneration energy in useful directions over the years.” The glow vanishes. “All better!”

“And you managed it without ogling,” Rose starts to say, and then realizes that’s definitely not the case. “Doctor!”

“What?” the Doctor protests. “I got distracted _after _the healing, not before!”

“Just…” Rose bursts out in a fit of exhausted, ridiculous giggling as she turns off the water. “Just give me the towel, yeah?”

The Doctor opens the shower door and hands it over with her hand over her eyes. “I can stop being so blatant and whatnot, you know. If it’s…if it makes you uncomfortable. I just didn’t know what else to do. It felt like it’d be cruel to just pretend like nothing ever happened, but this—”

“It’s not that. Well, it’s a little of that. It’s just…I’m not used to it anymore,” Rose says quietly, drying her hair as quickly as she can. “Being looked at that way.”

The Doctor waits for Rose to step out of the shower, towel wrapped around herself, before she drops her hand from her eyes. She seems to be thinking something over, and then says, “Two thousand, nine hundred ninety-eight years, three months, six days, eight hours, thirty-eight seconds. That’s how old I am now. It’s been two thousand ninety-three years since I’ve seen your face, love. I might be overcompensating a bit.”

Rose feels her throat tighten. “Four hundred twenty-seven years, six months, and three days. I’m not really keeping track of the seconds.”

“That’s what you get for swallowing the time vortex like an utter lunatic and taking yourself outside of Time’s reach,” the Doctor retorts, and then that fake irritation melts into heartbreak. “You said you and other-me only had forty years together.”

Rose has to swallow against that stupid tightness. “Yeah. That part of you was mostly human, remember? It wasn’t even old age that caught up to us. Pancreatic cancer; runs on Donna’s father’s side of the family. John was half you and half her, and that latter half was enough.”

“He went with John,” the Doctor says in sad bemusement. “John Smith.”

“You said it sounded better than going with Jane Doe, even if it would be funny.” The idea _had_ been funny, but things had been messy enough just trying to get the poor man a legal identity. John Smith was a pseud Rose and the Doctor had both been familiar with, and neither’d minded it so much. “I didn’t change my name, though. Your other half ended up as John Tyler.”

The Doctor smiles a little. “Probably for the best, that. Full-on domestic?”

“So much,” Rose confirms, remembering how horrified the Doctor used to be by the idea. “You still feel that way?”

The Doctor shakes her head. “Nah. Not the same way, at least. I’ve even thought about having a flat! Not sure what I’d do with a flat, but it was a thought. Can you picture me in a flat?”

“Two thousand years ago for you? Not in the least,” Rose says. “Now? You’re not running so much anymore, are you?”

“I suppose not.” The Doctor shoves her hands into her coat pockets, head cocked to one side. “No! I’m really not, am I? That’s weird. I didn’t even realize I’d lost the habit. What about you, Rose? How are you with flats?”

“Oh, I like to get out often enough so I’m not a shut-in.” Rose tries to keep it to herself, but she can’t. She’s facing one of the only people who she knows, _knows_, will truly understand. “After John died, I couldn’t really…I couldn’t bring myself to look at anyone else, not that way. It’s only been three hundred sixty-four years for me, but I’ve definitely had time to understand what you said when we met Sarah Jane in 2006.”

“_You can spend the rest of your life with me, but I can’t spend the rest of my life with you_,” the Doctor whispers, quoting her own words. “I’m so sorry.”

“I’m not.” Rose tries to smile. “Because that’s not really true anymore, is it?”

The Doctor’s brow furrows, and even on this new face, it’s so familiar that Rose’s heart wants to soar out of her bloody chest. “Are you telling me that you can’t die? Like Jack?”

“I’m the Bad Wolf. But…” Rose shrugs and nearly loses the towel. “Dunno. I’ve never tried dying on purpose to see if it would stick. I’ve been hurt, and it heals the slow way, but nothing’s killed me yet. I’m not in any big hurry to die or anything, anyway. When we realized I was going to be the one to leave him behind, John made me promise not to give up, so I didn’t.”

Rose didn’t know if this was the point she’d ever get to, being with the Doctor in truth again. Maybe John had. He’d still been half-Time Lord, and the Bad Wolf wasn’t omniscient until she was. It was an odd way to live, but they’d made it work.

The Doctor pulls out her sonic, which Rose can’t really look at and call a screwdriver, and turns away, using it to knock any dirt off of Rose’s clothes. Rose appreciates that; they’re all she has to wear at the moment. She also knows a distraction when she sees one.

“Did you two have any kids?” the Doctor asks quietly while she’s working.

“Sort of. Foster kids,” Rose replies. The Doctor turns around quickly, confused. “We couldn’t—I mean, we tried, and there was no medical reason but…we couldn’t,” she explains. It’s an old hurt, that one. “Besides, there were still kids who were orphaned because of that mess with the Cybermen. They needed parents, so why not?”

The Doctor smiles. “Why not, indeed? You had a family, then. You could have…you could have stayed.”

“I did, for a long while.” Rose wriggles her toes in the plush bath mat in front of the shower, realizing she’s soaked it down while standing on it. “The foster kids had kids of their own, but it wasn’t quite the same as real grandkids, and then their kids didn’t really know me. Little brother Tony decided to make me an aunt a few times over, and then that lot grew up and had their own kids, but by the time I’d hit great-aunt for the third time, none of them really knew who I was anymore. I was just the odd family friend who worked out of Torchwood, being invited to all the big get-togethers because it was the thing to do, not because they understood why any longer. After a while, you just…” Rose reaches up and wipes at her eyes. “It gets to be a bit much, nobody knowing who you are.”

The Doctor lifts her hands and offers her a hug. Rose hesitates only a moment before rushing into it. “Rose, Rose, Rose. My Rose,” the Doctor repeats under her breath. Rose gasps in a breath and lets it out in a pathetic sob.

“My Doctor.” It doesn’t matter what face she’s wearing. This is her Doctor, best friend she ever had, nutter boyfriend—maybe even nutter girlfriend, now. All the pain, all the loneliness, is worth it just for this moment.

“You’re really four hundred twenty-seven years old?” the Doctor suddenly asks, but she doesn’t let go.

Rose rolls her eyes while sniffling. “Yeah. You gonna get me a cake for my next birthday?”

“Only if you get me a cake for the next one of mine. I’ve rediscovered chocolate. This is probably doom for everyone.”

Rose nods. “I can do that.” She hesitates only a moment. “Everything you said before, when you were talking to me to get Samael to bugger off…did you mean it?”

“Oh, sweetheart,” the Doctor murmurs, her arms tightening around Rose. “I meant every single blasted word.”

“Oh. Good,” Rose says, and doesn’t mind so much anymore when her towel slips.

* * * *

Rose is dressed, clean, with her hair mostly behaving itself, by the time Mickey shouts up the stairs. “Food’s here! It was a sly trick; it’s not pizza at all!”

“He never said it was,” Rose calls back, smiling. Nice to know both Mickey and Jack still have pizza on the brain whenever food is mentioned. The moment Rose and the Doctor introduced Jack to pizza had just been the end of him wanting much of anything else.

Donna pops around the corner of the bookshop doorway that divides the darker back room and stairs from the rest of the shop. “Can one of you wake up Sir Tetchy over there? Aziraphale is trying to herd the cats known as the rest of us before the food gets anywhere near his books. If he actually does bite, Tetchy McSunshine can fix it.”

“I’d complain about you robbing me of a nickname, but he does sort of embody the tetchy part,” the Doctor says. “Don’t worry. If I can wake up far too many Cybermen by accident and still be alive afterwards, I can handle this.”

Donna rolls her eyes. “I probably don’t want to even know. Best hurry, though. There might be a war on over slices of cake. Are either of you picky?”

“Not _nearly_ as much as face number sort-of-eleven, no,” the Doctor answers. “Oooh. I smell grilled food.”

“And wraps,” Donna supplies. “And chips.”

Rose realizes, all at once, that she is bloody ravenous. “Oh, God, I want London chips like you would not believe. And chicken, if you can rescue it from anyone before it’s made off with.”

“I’ll stab them with a fork for it,” Donna promises. Rose remembers enough about Donna to know that she’s probably serious. “Doctor?”

“Aubergine?” the Doctor says hopefully. “I smell roasted eggplant out there somewhere.”

Donna grins. “I’ll be rescuing the aubergine from the carnivores, then.”

They approach the hearth and its bracketing sofas again, hand-in-hand. Crowley’s brow is furrowed in sleep, one hand dragging along the floor, his other arm stretched up along the wall; one knee is cocked, and his other leg is stretched out so his bare foot is hanging off the end of the sofa.

“He doesn’t actually look like he’s enjoying that nap,” Rose observes. She never witnessed the Doctor have a nightmare, mostly because he’d do his bloody damnedest never to sleep if he could help it, but she knows that expression. “Are you ever going to explain why you looked like him for a while?”

“There’s a bit that I still don’t remember from early in that particular regeneration, back when you first met me,” the Doctor murmurs. “I know Crowley was on Earth. I could’ve seen him somewhere and never even realized it. I mean, my last face was a match for a bloke Donna helped me to rescue from Pompeii, and I still don’t know the reason for _that_. Sometimes it just happens.”

“You are still so _bad_ at spilling out a bunch of words that aren’t the answer to what you’re really being asked,” Rose observes bluntly. “How do we wake him up, then? Because I gotta tell you, I saw those teeth, an’ I don’t want to be bitten by them.”

The Doctor gives her a familiar_ You’re being ridiculous_ expression. “I’ll do it.” She reaches out and nudges Crowley’s shoulder with her fingertips. “Crowley—oh, he’s very out of it,” the Doctor realizes at once. “That’s going to take a bit of a deeper nudge, and probably me being bitten, but…”

Rose knows it’s going to go pear-shaped the moment the Doctor’s fingers come to rest on Crowley’s temple. She has no idea _why_ she knows it, but it’s there, right in the forefront of her brain. “Doctor!”

“Oh, not good,” the Doctor yelps—and then they’re both somewhere else.

Traveling with the Doctor started the habit, the development of instinct, but working with Torchwood for more than two centuries drove all those lessons in hard. Rose has tackled the Doctor to the ground before she’s aware of what danger they’re avoiding.

The tip of a spear passes through the space they’d been standing in, but as Rose rolls over, she realizes it wasn’t aimed at them. The man wielding the spear was swiping at another man, who’d leapt back in time to avoid it. Rose and the Doctor just happened to appear in the middle of their battlefield.

“Oh. Oh, this is probably bad.” At least the Doctor only lifts her head instead of trying to stand up in the middle of the chaos. That had occasionally been a problem.

“Just probably?” Rose asks in disbelief. They’re in a field of trampled grass and dying plants, with burnt scorches on the earth. The people around them are mostly human-shaped, though their style of dress varies from tunics and sandals to robes and bare feet—and armor. There is a _lot_ of armor. Also, almost everyone present has wings.

Some of those large wings are white. Some are gold. Some are black as soot. There are a few other colors, too, though all of those rich colors have golden accents that looks especially dramatic on the ones with blood-red wings. Two wings, four wings—even a few odd ones with six wings.

Rose tries to scrape her mental way through a neglected church education and doesn’t come up with much to explain the differences in Celestial wing types. Her mum hadn’t had much use for churches after Rose’s dad died in front of one when she was a baby. Rose never had a reason to pick up the habit, or any of the literature, as an adult.

The Doctor grabs Rose’s hand again as they both creep out of the battle’s way to huddle near a white stone wall. “We’re in a memory.”

“Shouldn’t it be from the point of view of the person remembering it, then?”

“It depends on the species. Some of us are more aware of what’s happening around us than others,” the Doctor explains in an absent tone, but she doesn’t mean it to be an insult. A lot of it is psychic awareness; Rose has built up quite a bit of that over the years, but she’s nowhere near a Time Lord’s level.

Rose has a feeling she knows the answer to her question. “Where are we?”

“The Celestials’ home dimension. Their plane of existence. Heaven, if you want to go by biblical theology,” the Doctor says, gazing around. Every building they can see in the twilight is white, or at least faking it pretty well. Now that Rose’s eyes have adjusted to the light and the chaos, she thinks they’re in a garden in the middle of a city. “This isn’t a normal dream. Not a sent one, and not a subconscious recollection, either. This is purposeful.”

“How can you tell?”

“Not sure.” The Doctor cocks her head, as if listening. “But I’ll bet you anything Crowley is looking for Samael.”

“Why not just contemplate it while awake? This is…” Rose flinches when a woman with two sets of white wings is speared by a sword wielded by someone with soot wings. She falls to the ground with choked scream.

This is the War, the very first war to ever exist. She knew, vaguely, that what Samael blithered on about existed as a concept, but for some reason she always pictured a Heavenly sort of battle being a bit less…

Less conflict. Less bloodshed. A lot more of God waving his hand and casting out trouble before it could start.

There are screams everywhere. Blood that is red; blood that is like golden ichor. Clashing weapons and enraged shouting almost drown out the cries of those in pain.

This is _horrific_.

“There!” The Doctor points at two shapes almost lost in the grass, even though most of the grass has been trampled to the dirt.

Rose sees the motion before anything else. A long ribbon of white and a long ribbon of black, both with hints of rainbows edging their scales, are racing into the worst of the battle, straight for that fallen female Celestial with four wings. The white ribbon shifts and morphs, becoming the form of a man dressed in black robes. Somehow, Rose still knows which twin it is—that’s Israfil, embodying the silver part of the ouroboros pendant he wears around his neck. He already has his right hand on the wounded woman, his entire hand burning with golden light.

His staff appears in his left hand, but it’s not the caduceus. The black serpent doesn’t bother to shapeshift; Crowley wraps himself around Israfil’s staff and hisses angrily at a soot-winged Celestial who comes too close.

To Rose’s surprise, the soot-winged Celestial bows and steps back, raising his sword to engage with someone else. “Why’d he do that? Back off like that?”

“Healers,” the Doctor murmurs. “It’s sort of like how if you’re being civilized in a war, you don’t go after the medics. Israfil and Crowley were—are—both healers.”

“Like the Red Cross and such.” Rose watches as a black-haired Celestial with a set of perfect golden wings is driven back towards the twin healers. He’s got a flaming sword that looks a bit terrifying, but the soot-winged bloke is swinging a pike with longer reach to it, forcing the Celestial to retreat.

“Celestials and Fallen, angels and demons. I guess it doesn’t really matter, does it?” Rose mutters. The Doctor gives her a look of agreement. Miracles, magic, science, all of it—they’ve both seen the lines blur too many times to be all that bothered.

“It does bother Martha, a bit, but the whole family’s religious. She’s not sure what to do about it aside from just…cope,” the Doctor says.

“How come your regeneration energy and their magic healing bit is the same color?”

The Doctor shakes her head. “I’ve got no idea, truly. Maybe all regenerative energy presents itself that way? I mean, that’s what the healers are doing. They’re regenerating what’s been damaged, is all—oh, no,” the Doctor whispers just as the black-haired angel with the flaming sword trips on something beneath his feet. He falls, sword coming down in a deadly arc—

Rose clamps her hand over her mouth to keep from shrieking when that flaming sword ends up plunged through Israfil’s chest. _No, no, she likes him, please, no!_

“Memory!” the Doctor hisses at her, though she looks terribly distressed. Things gets even worse when the black serpent is abruptly Crowley, gathering up his brother’s body and shrieking like his entire world has just ended.

“Wrong. This was wrong,” the Doctor says as an unnatural hush settles over everything. “Something about this was _very_ wrong.” Then she sucks in a startled breath. “It’s a fixed point. It’s a violated fixed point. Israfil wasn’t supposed to die. His death changed things, things that couldn’t be fixed without…oh.”

The Doctor tightens her hand on Rose’s fingers and points. “Look. Right there. Watch what Crowley’s doing.”

Rose can’t see it at first, but then she feels the Doctor helping her minor psychic abilities sit up and notice things. “Is Crowley doing what I think he’s doing?”

The Doctor rapidly nods. “They’re incorporeal beings before anything else.” They watch Crowley gather up every single bit of shattered golden glow that must be Israfil’s most basic form. “That’s why he was mostly dead for six thousand years. That damage would have taken a long, long time to heal. It would be difficult even for a Time Lord to come back from something like that. Not impossible, but so very difficult.”

Rose looks up at the silent watching Celestials and nearly surges forward in outrage before common sense kicks back in. “Samael! That’s him, right there.” She points to a pretty blond man with the physique of a bloody Greek god, one with soot-black wings and matching pit-black eyes.

The expression on Samael’s face is fierce. Hungry. It makes Rose feel like she just encountered another bucket of slime.

“He couldn’t have made that happen. Could he?” Rose asks. The black-haired, golden-winged angel with the sword is too horrified to have done this on purpose. He’s too bloody heartbroken, like a crack in existence that Rose can feel.

Rose, the Doctor, and that grieving Celestial all flinch when the gold that bronzed Crowley’s wings and decorated the tips of his feathers suddenly turns to dust. It falls away from him, carried away by the wind, leaving only black feathers behind.

Samael’s expression is even more gleeful. Predatory.

“Samael didn’t cause any of this.” The Doctor’s voice is hard. “But he knows what it means. He’s planning.”

Rose feels her heart clench in worry for Crowley and seething anger at Samael. “Is that all it takes for that Falling bit they natter on about? Losing someone you love?”

“No. Crowley isn’t…” The Doctor frowns. “When I first met Crowley, he was Fallen. Demonic. Whatever term you want to use. This isn’t that at all. Even when Crowley _was_ an actual demon, he acted more like an immortal, powerful human in an exceptionally bad mood instead of anything remotely evil. I think this is exactly what you said—it’s just an expression of grief.

“Crowley was looking to see if Samael recognized it, too. That’s why he’s dreaming about this on purpose,” Rose guesses.

“Yeah. Not sure why, not unless Crowley thinks we’re missing something else that’s just as important.” The Doctor bites her lip. “I wouldn’t want to dream of the Time War unless there was a good reason for it. Just living it again, only for a few moments, was bad enough.”

The memory shifts without warning, making Rose glad that she still held the Doctor’s hand. They don’t get to see whatever Crowley does with those pieces of Israfil. Rose assumes it must’ve been effective, or Israfil wouldn’t be sitting in a Soho bookshop.

Instead of a battlefield, they’re standing in an infirmary that looks like it popped out of a video game Rose used to play with Mickey when they were kids. It’s like a World War I hospital setup, including the stained glass window on the far wall that looks like it belongs in a church. This place feels too gentle to be that sort of place, though, and definitely too quiet. In Rose’s experience, churches don’t leave her feeling soothed. They leave her antsy and uncomfortable. This is a lot more like a real sanctuary.

“I’m just saying that you could be doing _anything_ with your power, Zaherael. Why remain here to do this?”

Rose feels her insides twist in revulsion. “That’s him. That’s Samael.”

The Doctor turns away from her curious study of the stained glass window to look in the direction Rose points. Samael looks the same as before, though his soot-black wings are folded neatly along his back, and he isn’t holding a weapon. He’s standing over a cot-sort of bed, where Crowley is kneeling over a patient. His hands are both glowing bright gold, healing whatever it is that felled the bedded Celestial. Rose got enough bits and bobs from Samael’s thoughts to know that Celestials, even if they’re “discorporated,” are really hard to kill. Them needing a hospital is unusual, which means the Celestials in these beds nearly died recently.

Crowley stands up and gives Samael a flat stare. His eyes aren’t golden and serpentine, but the same pale blue as Israfil’s. On the battlefield, his hair had also been just like his twin’s, with those perfect ember-red ringlets, but now it’s an utter mess. It’s also odd to see Crowley being the one in storm-blue colors instead of Israfil, but at the moment, it suits him. His wings aren’t present, though Rose can almost sense them, sort of like a dark outline in the air.

“What would you have me do, Samael?” Crowley asks. That familiar sardonic snarl is lurking just beneath the even tone of his voice. “Go out there? Join your lot? Pledge myself to Lucy’s foolishness? Cause more bloodshed in our home?” Crowley rolls his eyes and turns away. “No thanks. I’ve got quite enough to do without you attempting…whatever it is you think you’re doing.”

“I came to you, remember?” Samael asks in a silken purr. “I knelt before Heaven’s remaining Healer and asked for sanctuary. I’ve obeyed every rule, just as She commands.”

Crowley turns around and gives Samael a disappointed look. “You’ve done _only_ that. Sanctuary isn’t just about safety. If this place was attacked by your own brethren, would you defend it?”

Samael scowls rather petulantly in response. “I’m pledged to them.”

“That doesn’t matter. Asking for sanctuary from a _Healer_ also implies that you’re trying to better yourself. That’s what you asked for—the chance to prove that you could be better than you have been,” Crowley says, glaring at Samael.

When Samael says nothing, Crowley returns to seeing to the injured Celestials. There are six in all, though the last of the six is able to get out of bed after a last round of healing. The man walks out of the infirmary as if he was never hurt at all, which Rose is glad to see. She just hopes it lasts.

Crowley sighs after the doors shut behind the departing angel. “You asked for my help, but you won’t let me help you. I speak, you lash out, and nothing changes. What else am I supposed to do with you, Samael?”

Rose blinks and Samael is right next to Crowley, one arm wrapped around his waist. It isn’t a shift in memory; Samael teleported to his side. “We could spend more time together,” Samael suggests, his lips right next to Crowley’s ear. “Intimately. You could give me the chance to persuade you. Your talents are wasted here, but with us…”

Crowley shoves him back so hard that Samael ends up tripping on a bed and falling arse over teakettle. “Don’t,” Crowley hisses. His pupils are suddenly thin and serpentine. “Your advanccesss are mossst unwanted.”

“Oh, yes. I forgot.” Samael collects himself from the floor with smug dignity. Then he poses with his arms crossed across the top of the empty bed, head resting daintily on his hands. “You’ve never indulged in the joys of the flesh. You truly don’t know what you’re missing.”

Crowley’s black wings are abruptly present, raised up so his feathers flare out in what Rose definitely reads as a threat display. Then they vanish again, tucked away as if Crowley merely brought them out for a good stretch. “You sssmell of corruption, even now. Also…” Crowley blinks a few times and his eyes return to their normal icy blue. “Do not mistake me for my brother, especially since Raphael would rather have thrown himself into an erupting volcano than have sex with you.”

“I wouldn’t sully myself. Raphael’s wings would never have matched ours,” Samael murmurs in obvious pleasure. “You keep calling them _my_ brethren, but they’re _your_ brethren now, too.”

Now Crowley looks insulted. “It isn’t the color of your wings that makes you Fallen. I know who I am, and what I am, and I will _never_ be like you.”

Rose wants to warn Crowley when he turns around, but this is just a memory. The only thing she can do is haul the Doctor back when Samael bursts forth in a fury of rage and beating wings, tackling Crowley to the floor. A dagger manifests from nothing in Samael’s hand, poison black and trailing wisps of foul black smoke.

Crowley manages to hold Samael off for a moment, but Rose knows from Samael’s gleeful discussion of this moment that Zaherael the Healer was not a fighter. Samael backhands Crowley across the face and then plunges the manifested dagger directly into Crowley’s stomach.

Crowley’s agonized scream is choked off when Samael slaps his hand over Crowley’s mouth. “Ah, ah, ah. You have sleeping patients,” Samael reminds him, his face split in a horrible grin. Then he digs in the dagger until Rose winces as metal scrapes against the stone floor.

“I’ll _kill him_,” the Doctor whispers in a complete fury. She’s shaking with rage, stunning Rose. She’s only seen the Doctor come so close to the Oncoming Storm once or twice, and only when it’s a loved one in danger.

Rose would love to have a closer look at what’s going on, but it’s taking most of her strength to hold the Doctor back. “It’s a _memory_,” she says sharply, trying to get the Doctor’s attention. “We can’t do anything about this!”

“You know, this is a manifested weapon of the Fallen,” Samael continues thoughtfully, his hand still clamping Crowley’s jaw shut. He twists the knife; Crowley all but slams his head against the floor in an attempt to escape the blade, his bare feet sliding along the floor. Rose has a semi-hysterical thought about how Crowley still seems to prefer to avoid shoes.

“If you weren’t already so close to us, it would have burnt the flesh from your bones,” Samael says. “Your soul would be dissolving from its strength.”

The Doctor’s shaking eases back, but the burning anger in her brown eyes is almost worse. “I’m having a much easier time of wanting Samael dead now,” she comments. “That’s probably bad, wanting someone dead so much, isn’t it?”

Rose can’t answer. She feels like she’s watching a crash happen in slow motion, the sort you want to look away from but just feel hypnotized by. The sensation only gets worse when Samael slides his hand up the inside of Crowley’s robes and then clenches it into a fist.

Crowley makes a strangled sound that’s a lot closer to rage than pain. “Oh, I know.” Samael leers at him, making the slimy feeling increase tenfold. “Believe me, I promise you that I’m going to enjoy this. I’d say the same for you, but you didn’t say yes when I asked nicely the first time. Now…well. Now. As long as you’re quiet, I won’t kill everyone lying helpless behind us. I promise. What do you say, hmm?”

Samael leans closer, whispering in Crowley’s ear. Rose is rather glad she can’t hear what he’s saying. Crowley growls again, his eyes becoming the serpent gold Rose is used to—but all over, not just his pupils.

“When I remove my hand, don’t scream,” Samael says in apparent reminder. “I’d hate to disturb those who need their rest, but I’ll need both hands for what comes next. You’ll behave, won’t you?”

Crowley jerks his head in a weak nod, and Samael moves his hand away. “Such a pliant Healer.”

“Get fucked,” Crowley hisses, and then Samael is gone. Rose catches only a glimpse of Samael’s silvery black robes and black wings as the infirmary’s doors are blown outwards. In the distance, she hears an angry shriek.

“Oh. I like that word,” Crowley gasps out, and then seems content to lie there on the floor for a few minutes, panting for breath. “Think I’ll use it more often.” Then he lifts his head and stares at the dagger still protruding from his stomach. “Like right now. Fuck.”

Rose bites her lip as Crowley wraps his hand around the black dagger’s hilt and yanks it free with a pained cry. “YEP! FUCK! FUCK, THAT HURT.” He holds up the dagger for a moment and then drops it next to him, taking a look at the red burns on his hand. “That’s probably not good, either,” he mutters, and then laughs. Rose knows that sound, the laughter of a soldier—or anyone—who’s been pushed too far for too long. It’s a sound of weary resignation, recognition that, one way or another, the end is coming.

Crowley holds up his hand, golden light flickering at his fingers, before he brings it down to rest on his own bleeding stomach. He hisses under his breath, more pain than words, as he heals the wound. When he sits up, though, Rose knows it’s not a complete job. “Oh, come on.” Crowley grabs the nearest empty bed to finish pulling himself upright. Then he nearly falls onto it, gasping, clenching his fist against the stab wound.

“Samael knew that this sanctuary, this infirmary, would toss him from here. He knew it from the start,” the Doctor murmurs.

Rose nods. “Yeah. He was just waiting for someone to send a signal about that stolen weapon. I didn’t see a hint of it, but the lot of them are psychic.”

“I saw it. While Crowley was turned away.”

Rose is expecting the next transition, but they don’t witness Pronoia’s death. Instead, they’re standing in a grassy courtyard, a place that looks to have seen almost no fighting at all. A woman with dark skin, a white robe, and golden wings is sitting with Crowley on the ground. “She’s gone. She’s _gone_,” the woman is repeating.

This feels more like an intrusion than Samael’s violation of that sanctuary. Crowley is crying, his head resting against the woman’s shoulder. She’s crying, too, Rose notices, stress and heartbreak heavy on her face.

“My fault,” Crowley gasps out.

“No, little brother,” the woman says, but Rose sees the doubt in her eyes. Her stomach turns itself upside down. “It’s not your fault. You can’t bring back what has already been destroyed.”

“Doubt,” the Doctor says, mirroring Rose’s thoughts. “Oh, that’s not good. Oh, God.”

“Somehow I doubt God had all that much to do with their war,” Rose replies, surprised by how bitter she sounds. She doesn’t really have anything against God, personally, but she has a lot of reasons to be sick of war.

A paler, olive-skinned woman with hair that looks like captured starlight and golden wings approaches. The man behind her looks like an actual bleeding Renaissance angel, golden-haired and blue-eyed, far too perfect to be human even if his golden wings didn’t give it away. “Saraquel and I will watch over him, sister,” the woman says. “The others need you.”

The dark-skinned woman nods and rises to leave. Rose isn’t sure Crowley notices her departure at all. His golden-eyed focus is now entirely on the woman with starlight hair. “Raguel. Please.”

“We’ve already done this once today, Zaherael,” she protests at once, but she’s already retrieving a beautiful set of silver scales from her silvery robes.

Oh.

_After Raphael died, I asked her. I asked her every day: where am I? Where do I fall? And every day, Raguel measured the weight of my soul and found it in perfect balance between what was and what would be._

The scales are balanced, but not steady. The counterweights swing back and forth, like they’re trying to maintain equal measures in the midst of a mild earthquake. “You are struggling, Zaherael, but you aren’t Fallen,” Raguel tells him. “Nor will you be.”

“Raguel.” Crowley’s whisper is so soft, Rose can barely hear it. “I’m so scared.”

Raguel puts away the silver scales and kneels down in front of Crowley. When she grips his shoulders, her smile is kind, and there isn’t a hint of doubt on her face. “Little brother, I know you. Trust me; it would take the worst sort of betrayal for you to truly lose yourself. That isn’t going to happen here. Not to you, not among us.”

“It does, though.” The Doctor sounds shocked. “Someone here is going to do exactly that.”

“Why would they do that?” Rose asks, but the Doctor shakes her head, giving Rose a helpless look. The Doctor hates not knowing the answer, but if this nightmare lasts long enough, they might just find out.

“Samael attacked me with one of their blades,” Zaherael mumbles, and then holds out his hand, palm up, to show the other Celestials the bright red burn striping his skin. “You know what happens when we touch their weapons.”

“You still took a nasty burn from it,” Saraquel speaks for the first time. Even his voice sounds like bloody melted butter. “Balance, little brother. Right now, that’s probably useful.”

“Useful,” Crowley repeats dully, and then his gaze hardens. “You’re right. It _is_ useful.” He swallows and snaps his fingers, calling Israfil’s staff to his hand. “Would the two of you help me do something?”

“Anything,” Saraquel promises at once, his perfect blue gaze utterly serious.

Crowley reaches out; Raguel pulls him to his feet. He hisses under his breath, glances down at the dark stain on his robes, and then ignores it. “Help me find Samael.”

“Why?” Raguel asks in obvious surprise. Her eyes are as full of starlight as her hair, silver except for her pupils. “That’s a job for more than just three archangels, Zaherael.”

“Archangels?” Rose repeats curiously.

The Doctor shrugs. “All of those words had to come from somewhere, you know. Even Time Lords knew that word before Earth’s theology existed.”

Crowley is shaking his head at Saraquel and Raguel. “We’re not going to stop Samael. We can leave that up to the others. We’re just going to slow him down in a way that can’t be undone.”

Raguel and Saraquel exchange glances that make Rose wonder how close the two of them really are, but then she wonders if it even matters. These Celestials have been calling each other sister and brother, but that doesn’t necessarily mean genetics are in the way. It could be just a formality, or kindness.

Well, Rose suspects genetics matter for Israfil and Crowley, but they’re twins. If Rose is guessing right about the gold color of their wings, then all of the other archangels look wildly different from each other.

“Slow him down. Right.” Saraquel nods and pulls out a pair of silver daggers that have a faint greenish glow to them. “That sounds like something we can do. How?”

“We don’t even know where he is,” Raguel adds, though she has pulled forth a sword from nowhere that sort of resembles a katana. Like her measuring scales and robes, the blade is shining silver from tip to hilt.

Crowley reaches into his robes and pulls out the black dagger Samael stabbed him with. Both Saraquel and Raguel lean back, away from the weapon, but Crowley ignores them and balances it on his outstretched fingers. From the way his face is twitching, it has to be burning him, but he doesn’t let pain stop him. When he lowers his hand, the dagger remains hovering in the air. “Samael made this,” he explains as the dagger begins to move. “If we follow it, we’ll find him.”

The memory skips ahead again. Rose blinks her eyes to find that Saraquel and Raguel are already confronting Samael in another courtyard that’s surrounded on three sides by rising white walls. White is _definitely_ a theme in this city.

Samael is fending them off with a pike and another dagger, but he can’t gain the upper hand. The two archangels are darting back and forth, swift and silent. They aren’t trying to destroy him, just distract him, keeping him from flying away.

“How can you fight for them?” Samael asks, taunting them, his smile wide and cruel. “Your older siblings condemn anyone with black wings, no matter their crime! Your dear brother will be forever marked as one of us!”

“I’m really not all that concerned with them condemning _you_,” Saraquel retorts, catching the pike with his daggers split into a v-prong and twisting it away. “Not after Pronoia!”

“That was an unfortunate matter of circumstance,” Samael lies, giving Rose chills. “All I want is one thing. Just like dear Lucy, I want to lead us. I want us to be better than we are!”

Raguel’s blade darts out and draws blood, causing Samael to snarl in pain and retreat. “All _I_ want is for you to leave us in peace,” Raguel says, her voice sweet and deadly.

Rose realizes that she and the Doctor are standing next to Crowley, who is lurking in the shadow cast by one of the buildings. If it weren’t for his pale skin and bright red hair, he’d be nearly invisible. He is eying the staff, a glimmer in his pale blue eyes that is as harsh as it is mournful.

“Forgive me, Brother,” he whispers, and then snaps the staff in half over his knee. Rose lets out a shocked breath, surprised by the action.

“Oh,” the Doctor says in apparent realization, but she doesn’t explain. Rose doesn’t push; she has a feeling she’s about to find out why Crowley did that. Then the Doctor’s eyebrows draw together as she notices something on the ground. She bends down and picks up a small bit of dark wood that broke off of Israfil’s staff. “Let’s keep you handy, why don’t we?”

Then the Doctor grabs Rose’s hand again, hurrying after Crowley when he is suddenly on the move. Rose figures out at once that they can’t keep up with him. He’s too fast, zipping from point to point in the darkness like a storm cloud riding the wind, but he’s not teleporting. Samael would notice that. Crowley is just being fast, quiet, and _sly_. That’ll usually do the trick against some berk expecting flash and silly dramatics.

Samael is fond of dramatics. Rose would have a lot more scorn for him if his stupid dramatics weren’t so bloody effective.

It’s startling when Crowley is suddenly behind Samael, with Rose and the Doctor witnessing his appearance from off to the side. Samael is too busy fending off Saraquel and Raguel, both of them acting like they’re pressing an advantage they don’t really have.

Samael notices Crowley’s presence only when Crowley raises his arms. “I promissse you that I’m _really_ going to enjoy thisss!” Crowley hisses as he buries the sharp, splintered ends of Israfil’s broken staff into Samael’s back. They pierce Samael’s body just below the junction where Samael’s soot wings meet skin, right into muscles that were flexing and working to keep his wings aloft.

Samael roars in outrage as both of his wings suddenly become limp deadweights. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?”

“Crowley paralyzed him.” Rose is startled and probably far too approving of the idea. “Crowley paralyzed his wings! That’s why he couldn’t just fly out of that stupid prison near the black hole!”

Samael turns around in a rush, quick to use his paralyzed wings to sweep the other two angels and their weapons away from him. “YOU!”

Crowley has no chance to escape the crushing blow Samael delivers. Rose doesn’t think he even bothers to try.

“Run, please,” the Doctor whispers, but Crowley never moves. He doesn’t even flinch back.

Samael’s backhand sends Crowley flying. He lands with a sharp crack against the building’s white stone wall and then falls to the ground in a motionless heap. Rose screams without meaning to, the Doctor’s fingers tight on her own. It’s too real, too mindful of so much Rose would rather forget.

The Doctor pulls Rose back just as the grass in front of them erupts in fire, a crackling blaze that is quick to rise until it’s taller than their heads. Rose lifts her free arm and tries to shield her face from the heat. She knows at once that Samael called the fire, but she’s surprised by how intense it is, and by its bloody rank smell. “Where are they?” Rose asks, trying to peer through flame and smoke that’s making her eyes water.

“It’s corrupted flame! I think that would burn us both, even in a memory!” the Doctor shouts over the roar of the fire.

“But what about Crowley?” Rose asks, trying to catch sight of anything beyond the flames. That part of the ground has to be on fire, too, but Rose can’t find him.

“There!” The Doctor points at another Celestial who lands in a crouch next to Raguel and Saraquel, who are both gazing on the fire in outright horror. The new Celestial’s wings are molten gold, like the others, but so is their hair, their eyes, and their armor. The only thing different is that their gold-handled sword shines with a faint blue light.

“What happened?” the new Celestial shouts, their voice like the boom of a thousand drums. Rose cringes back, hoping a dreamed memory doesn’t make you deaf.

“Zaherael is in there!” Saraquel yells, pointing at the flames. “You’re the one in the armor, Michael!”

“Samael might still be—”

“Samael is fleeing!” Michael interrupts Raguel, but they look very concerned about the wall of fire in their path. “Gabriel is after him. Who crippled Samael’s wings?”

“Our idiot Healer brother!” Raguel snaps.

“Good on him, then,” Michael mutters, and then takes flight again. “Baby brother, you’d better not be on fire!”

Rose and the Doctor don’t have to get closer; the memory shifts so they can see it. Michael lands in a small patch of unburnt grass next to Crowley. There is no missing the horrified gasp Michael lets out upon seeing him.

Crowley hasn’t moved, but his eyes are open as he regards his right arm in blank curiosity. His arm is lying across a band of that stinking, corrupt flame that Samael left behind. “Oh, God,” Rose gasps.

“He’s not burning.” The Doctor is a bit too wide-eyed to be reassuring at the moment. “Well, he _is_ burning, but he’s not—!”

Whatever the Doctor was going to say is drowned out by Michael suddenly calling forth a deluge of water. It washes past Rose’s feet and splashes on her skin. Everywhere it lands feels like the same sort of blessing Aziraphale granted her earlier, the one that felt like soothing water. The water extinguishes the whole of the blaze just as quickly as Samael started it, leaving the grassy area a smoking, soaking ruin.

Rose decides to share in Crowley’s blank shock. “So…holy water is real. Good to know that, just in case I ever meet a vampire.”

The Doctor shrugs. “Holy water, or water that’s been chemically charged to counter the chemical changes in corrupted fire. Either or.”

Zaherael is still staring at his right arm. Part of his robe is burnt away, and his skin is red and blistered. “Issat sssppossed to happen?”

“I’m just glad your idiot self isn’t _dead_!” Michael snaps, gathering up their fallen sibling. “How badly are you hurt?”

“Oh, right. I wasss ssstill bleeding. I ffforgot about that part,” Crowley responds, and slumps so quickly into unconsciousness that Michael nearly drops him.

Rose notices the two halves of the broken staff lying on the charred ground and darts forward, snatching them up. They’re soaking wet; the water cleaned them of blood and taint when it got rid of all the cursed fire. “Just in case?” Rose says to her astonished Doctor—and then the memory shifts again. They’re back in the infirmary, which smells an awful lot like blood and smoke.

All of the beds are empty. Rose isn’t sure if that’s a good sign or not.

Crowley is sitting on a stone bench placed beneath the stained-glass window. Michael is next to him, still wearing their golden armor. Rose glances up to study the window, not really surprised to notice that Raguel’s scales, Saraquel’s golden coronet, and Israfil’s staff are pictured there. So are Michael’s glowing sword and that flaming sword held by the black-haired archangel. The tattoo on Crowley’s face is next to the staff, a black serpent that looks like a living infinity symbol. The only other symbol is a white rose, all of them surrounding a brilliant burning fire illuminated by the sun. It has to be later, then, last night’s battle over and done with.

Seven symbols. Seven archangels. Something tickles at Rose’s mind, then, something important, but she can’t grasp the significance. She has her moments and can admit it, but the Doctor is the really clever one.

“You idiot,” Michael says.

Crowley glances up from his contemplation of his bandaged hands and arm to glare at them. “That makes five times now. Are you done yet?”

Michael’s lips twitch. “Not yet. You idiot.”

“I crippled Samael, and this is the thanks I get? I can feel the love, I really can.”

Michael smiles outright. “Your sarcasm is probably not the best weapon a Healer should wield.”

“It’s an _amazing_ weapon. You should try it more often.”

Rose has to bite back a giggle. “He sounded an awful lot like you just then,” she says to the Doctor, who rolls her eyes.

Michael clasps Crowley’s shoulder. “Keep healing. We still need you, Zaherael.” Then they rise and depart in the flutter of wings that seems to accompany a Celestial teleportation if they’re showing off their feathers.

Crowley blows out a frustrated sigh after Michael leaves. “You don’t need me. You need Raphael,” he murmurs, resting his right hand over his heart—or where Rose presumes his body has a heart, anyway. “Raphael is better at this, and we both know it.”

“Rose,” the Doctor says.

“What?”

The Doctor glances at her and then looks down at the two pieces of broken staff Rose is still holding. “You should probably give that back to him.”

Rose feels her face twist up in bafflement. “How? This is a memory!”

The Doctor reaches out and drops the extra bit of wood from the broken staff into Rose’s left hand. She instinctively clutches it against the staff so she won’t lose it. “You know how.”

And she does, right then. That bit of knowledge slots itself neatly into her head as if it was there from the start.

Sometimes being the Bad Wolf is bloody weird, but it’s her own blasted fault.

Rose approaches Crowley carefully, hoping not to startle him. “Hello.”

Crowley tilts his head forward, away from his tired contemplation of the ceiling. “Hello,” he echoes, and then frowns. “Who are you? Why do you absolutely reek of Time?”

Rose smiles. “Long story to both of those. Why do you think I reek of Time?”

“Because you do,” Crowley replies, but she’s getting more curiosity from him than irritation. His constant state of irritability must come later, because the Celestial War hasn’t ground it into him. Not yet, anyway. “Why are you here?”

She holds out the two halves of Israfil’s staff. “I think it has something to do with this.”

Crowley stares at the broken pieces. “I thought it was gone. I thought Samael’s fire took it.”

Rose can feel the slight burn in her eyes as the Bad Wolf makes itself known. “No. I might’ve been lurking about to make certain it wasn’t. It’s a thing I do. I’m sort of everywhere at once, or at least I’m everywhere I’m meant to be.”

Crowley tilts his head, and she can feel something from him, a sensation that’s sort of psychic, and very much a sort of something else. It’s like time and artron energy and the time vortex itself, and if Rose was ever asked to describe it, she’d fail entirely. “You’re tied to someone else, though. You being here doesn’t have anything to do with me.”

“Yes, it does. You’re important to them.” The Bad Wolf feels a warm flush of knowledge that Rose doesn’t yet need to understand. “Therefore, it has everything to do with you. In this moment, and in many to come. Take the staff, Zaherael. Repair it. He’ll need it again, and it must be waiting.”

Crowley accepts the two halves of the staff from Rose and fits them together. His eyes and his hands flash gold, a light echoed by the severed sections of staff. When he’s done, the staff is whole again except for a jagged crack wrapping around the center.

The Bad Wolf holds out the last piece. “One more.”

Crowley raises the staff, revealing the spot where the chip belongs, exactly where that jagged crack begins. “I’m pretty sure you’re meant to do the honors for that one. It’s tied to that person you’re attached to.”

“Time is sort of funny that way, isn’t it?” the Bad Wolf says. “It isn’t linear. You can live it that way, but Time itself really can’t be buggered to concern itself much with being straight lines and whatnot.” Then she fits the broken shard of wood into the staff, a little pocket sliver where it sits perfectly. The staff lights up again as the crack disappears, each of the carved symbols glowing gold before the staff goes back to being a normal-looking bit of dark wood.

Crowley examines the staff, turning it around in his hands. “I was…I was dreaming this. This isn’t a dream, though. Not this part.”

“Yeah, I might be cheating the system a bit.” The Bad Wolf smiles. “Not for the first time, either.”

“I don’t remember how I got the staff back.” Crowley snaps his fingers and makes it disappear. “My brother found it when we were…well. It was waiting for him like it had never been broken. It just seemed normal, so we didn’t question it.”

The Bad Wolf wrinkles her nose. “This is entirely normal, thank you very much.”

“I’m a Time Lord, and even I think it’s a bit weird,” the Doctor says.

The Bad Wolf can see it as Crowley becomes more like who he is now, and less like who he was, as he gains the ability to see the Doctor. “What the bloody hell are you two doing in my head?”

“Oi, don’t blame me for this!” the Doctor protests at once. “I was just trying to wake you up, but you’re grabby! You yanked us both along for this…this…”

“Really shitty bit of family history? Yeah. Sorry about that.” Crowley rubs at his face. “That hasn’t happened in a few centuries. The grabbing, I mean.” He hesitates, brow furrowing. “This is really happening, isn’t it? It happened then, not now.”

“Afraid so,” Rose answers, but the Bad Wolf is still present, burning contently behind her eyes. “I’m still not used to the times when this happens, usually because it’s not necessarily me being right there for it. I’m still living my life linearly, but then I’ll suddenly know that I’ve done something somewhere else. That’s usually when the migraines come to visit.”

“You’re saying that Israfil’s staff is whole because, millennia after I broke it, you two turn up in the middle of a dream to fix it so that it happened _then_.” Crowley rolls his eyes up at the ceiling. “Sure. Why not? There’s been weirder shit. I can’t remember most of what happened today, anyway.”

“Why is that?” the Doctor asks. Rose gives her a pleased smile, aware that the Doctor is politely struggling _not_ to ask an utter pile of questions all at once. “What happened on this particular day?”

Crowley shrugs. “By noon, I’m going to be well on my way to Falling. An hour later, it’s literal.”

The Doctor bites her lip. “I’m so sorry.”

He shrugs again. “It doesn’t bother me as much as it used to.”

“Liar,” the Bad Wolf says gently. “It’s your face. I’ll probably always know,” she confirms when Crowley glares at her. “What is it like to Fall?”

Crowley blinks a few times, the reaction more human at the moment instead of reptilian. “You know, I’ve discussed it before, but no one has ever actually asked me what it’s like.”

The Doctor approaches the bench, but not without another brief glance at the stained-glass window. “I’m the Oncoming Storm,” she says. “I fell a very long time ago, and I’ve been climbing my way back out of my own pit ever since.”

Rose doesn’t know why that helps Crowley talk about it, but the Bad Wolf does. “It feels like dying,” Crowley whispers. “But after you hit bottom, after you climb your way out of liquid sulfur, burning alive, you’re not reborn. You’re still dying, and that feeling never goes away.”

“But you didn’t choose to Fall,” the Bad Wolf murmurs.

“No.” Crowley glances at her, and then looks at the Doctor. “But for a little while afterwards, I did give up. Gave in. Did something I’m not proud of, something I can’t take back.”

“But you kept going,” the Doctor says. The Bad Wolf all but purrs, sensing a conversation that’s happened before being properly revisited.

“I wouldn’t have, not easily, but then I stumbled over a bad movie cliché before clichés existed.” The expression on Crowley’s face couldn’t really be called a smile, but it is very fond. “I fell in love with an idiot. Well, Guardian of the Eastern Gate, complete academic, but so bloody oblivious it really began to hurt after a few millennia.”

The Doctor smiles at Rose. “I fell in love with a nineteen-year-old shop girl who told me off when I was being a complete arse, and when confronted with her first deadly alien, decided the best thing in the world would be to kick it in the face.”

“Well, it’s not like you were managing any better.” The Bad Wolf flares back up into life, her interest caught by a sense of evasion. “Samael. He knew that your brother’s death, even if it was temporary, violated a fixed point in time.”

“Well over six thousand years is a hell of a bit more than temporary, but yeah. He knew.”

The Bad Wolf nods at Crowley. “Samael also wanted you to Fall. Both of those things are important. One only happened because of the other; you and Raphael are tied together in life, and in death. What would happen if the two of you were truly lost?”

Crowley eyes the Bad Wolf in return. “That’s the trouble, isn’t it? How does Samael know that loss would cause a weakness in the first place? That is something Samael _should not know_.”

The Bad Wolf raises an eyebrow. “On Krop Tor, Samael declared that he would be made manifest, that he would walk in the light. He declared darkness to be his domain, and that he would bring about the death of hope.”

Crowley lets his head thump back against the wall. “That’s not news. Samael has wanted to rule over everything from the moment the War began, he just didn’t have the power to do it. He has it now—or at least he’s certainly got enough to give it a decent go.”

The Doctor stares up at the stained-glass window. “It’s the symbols. Samael didn’t just ask for sanctuary here to wait out an accomplice. He was looking at that window, and while he was here, he figured out exactly what it meant.”

Crowley scowls. “Of course he did. Revenge was too simple. I fucking hate him, but hating him doesn’t make Samael magically less bloody intelligent.”

“I really, really want to understand what the problem is, because I can’t see all of it,” Rose complains. “The Bad Wolf can see that it’s the two of you he wants, and it’s the two of you he’s certain he’s going to defeat tomorrow, but not _why_ that matters!”

Rose suspects Crowley is grinding his teeth. “When we realized that the Earth had been blocked off dimensionally, before we realized the time loop was going to happen, we pushed a few mobile calls through that block. Bloody well nearly melted the mobiles in the process, but what we got back was the only bit of help that Upstairs could offer—that means right here,” he clarifies for Rose, who just looks baffled. “Upstairs, Downstairs, Above, Below. You get used to the idea.”

“Help?” the Doctor prompts.

“It’s a prophecy, which I hate,” Crowley answers. “Prophecies are usually rubbish, but when you get one from your literal Maker, you fucking well pay attention. Two secrets are brought together to end the trap—to end Samael—and he already knows exactly what they are.”

Rose abruptly finds herself awake, standing at the Doctor’s side. They’re still holding hands, with the Doctor’s fingers just brushing Crowley’s face.

She peers around the Doctor just in time to see Crowley give the Doctor’s fingers a baffled look before he glares at Rose. “At least you’ve stopped reeking of Time.”

The Doctor takes a polite step back when Crowley all but flings himself upright. “Tell me how bad things just got.”

“Ugh. I don’t know what comes after pomegranates,” Crowley mutters, running his hands through his hair to smooth it back down. “Can you feel that?”

Rose turns her head, realizing as she gets used to the psychic shift that something feels very, very wrong. It’s an oppressive heaviness in the air, anger and despair.

It’s like having Samael in her head all over again.

“What is that?” Rose whispers, with no idea that she’s shivering until the Doctor wraps her arm around Rose’s waist.

“That’s Samael. It’s his version of saying he wants to have a chat.” Crowley sighs and gets up, grabbing the cricket bat leaning against the end table as he does so. “Suppose I’ll just have to find out what he has to say.”


	15. Theology

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What does it really take to kickstart a universe?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This would be going so much faster if the characters weren't fighting me because Feelings are Hard.

Donna is trying to sort through takeaway boxes with Aziraphale and Jack when the feeling begins to creep up with her. Granted, sorting through the boxes mostly involves making certain Jack doesn’t make off with all of them. “Oi, Captain Cheesecake! Hands off; you’re gonna share,” she informs him tartly.

Jack looks miffed. “Captain Cheesecake?”

“Mickey told me. I thought it was cute,” Donna says. “Besides, are you gonna deny it?”

“Nah. Ooh, what’s this?” Jack asks, opening a box.

Aziraphale notes its contents and motions for Jack to hand it over. “Lamb kofta, and it’s one of the few things I know for certain that Crowley will eat.”

Jack hands it back. “That picky, huh?”

Donna nods. “You’ve no idea,” she answers, still trying to figure out why she suddenly wants to cry. She was in a good mood, all things regarding that Samael bloke considered. She has part of her life back, is surrounded by friends in a way she hasn’t been in years, and is about to wolf down a meal that she normally wouldn’t treat herself to just to stay in budget for the month. “Oh, chips and chicken, Rose claimed that one. Samael wasn’t feeding his kidnapping victim.”

“Found a burger. Mine!” Jack declares, and Donna tries to smile. She truly does. Instead, all she can manage is a twitch of her lips, because everything is suddenly, completely _hopeless_.

Israfil suddenly lifts his head, glaring at something off in the distance. “Oh, that is not acceptable in the _slightest_,” he growls.

The hopeless feeling suddenly lifts a bit. Donna had no idea she was having trouble breathing until she has to bend over the table, drawing in huge gulps of air. “What _is_ that?”

“That would be us working on your psychic bits when this mess is over with,” Jack says. “I didn’t even notice.”

“I bloody noticed!” Mickey complains. “Even with the shielding tricks! What the fuck is that?”

Aziraphale pauses in the midst of using a Sharpie to write on a takeaway box, marking it with Rose’s name in rather lovely script. “I don’t think I’ve felt anything like that since the war. Donna, take over, please. I need to watch the door.”

“Yeah. Sure,” Donna says, finding a rather lovely looking aubergine grilled dish and marking it with the Doctor’s name in the proper set of circles. Jack chuckles when he sees them.

“Stuck with the language, huh?”

“Don’t think I’d call it stuck, really.” Donna glances over her shoulder at Mickey and Martha before deciding the lamb wrap is all hers. It’s probably for the best that dessert got sorted first. There are plenty of savories left for anyone wanting seconds. “Fight you for a spot at the table with Adam,” she says to Jack, who grins and accepts the challenge. He can certainly take up an awful lot of table-space with just his bleeding elbows. Adam is already in the third chair, plowing his way through a falafel, though he ignores the sauce.

Donna shoves aside her dinner box when she sees Crowley, the Doctor, and Rose exit the back room. Crowley is back in his sunglasses, but that’s all he’s bothered to gather up aside from the cricket bat. She knows that expression, though, even if it’s now reflected by two different faces.

“I take it you know why it suddenly feels like bloody misery out here?” She’s been torn between sobbing and taking a hammer to the walls for the last few minutes, and that’s with Israfil and Aziraphale doing whatever-it-is to make it feel less intense. Jack’s been a great distraction, but Adam has been starting to squirm in discomfort, whereas Martha and Mickey both look like they want to kill something.

“Yep.” Crowley glances at Israfil. “That’s with you filtering it out, isn’t it?”

Israfil is leaning against the wall, eyes shut, head bowed as he does whatever _filtering_ Crowley means. “That’s with both of us filtering it out. Aziraphale is at the door. He’s gotten worse, Brother.”

“He hung out in front of a black hole. This is just the start,” Crowley replies, which is when Donna grabs Captain Cheesecake’s hand and drags him along with her.

“Samael?” Jack asks, not even bothering to fight against Donna’s hold. He’s either been trained to be a bit smarter in the meantime, or Donna learned to be a bit more bloody insistent. Either way, she isn’t heading out to confront anything without backup, and he’s the one who’s immortal.

“What, the bastard can’t even let us eat in peace?” Mickey asks. He drops his takeaway tray on the floor where he and Martha had been sitting and scrambles after them. Martha grabs some sort of device from their kit first, which Donna really hopes isn’t a gun. Aside from the Doctor’s issues with guns, it doesn’t seem like the sort of device that’s safe to have around Celestials, Fallen or otherwise.

“Aziraphale.”

Aziraphale glances at Crowley and frowns. “I’m not certain if you look better or worse after a half-hour’s rest.”

“Flatterer.” Crowley lets out an annoyed huff before he snaps his fingers so that the shop door opens.

“Is that a good idea?” Rose asks. Donna looks down long enough to see that her grip on the Doctor’s hand is white-knuckled, and doesn’t blame her one bit.

“It’s a sodding terrible idea, but I don’t want to spend the rest of the night breaking things because he doesn’t know how to knock,” Crowley replies, walking out into the street. At least this time he doesn’t ask for them to stay behind—probably because none of them would. Weeping Angels are one thing, but they’re all smart and mental enough to know that you don’t confront the worst of the lot by yourself.

The street outside is empty of people, which is a relief. Donna glances around and finds her attention immediately caught by a figure standing on the other side of Greek Street, on the walkway beneath the theatre. The lights from the marquee illuminate him, a tall man with blond hair, wearing a jumper and trousers in smoke grey, probably a nice build beneath. If she didn’t have self-preservation, she’d be tempted to look twice, but his eyes are hidden by shadows, and his smile gives her the creeps.

“That’s him,” Rose whispers, pulling Adam close to her. “Samael.”

“Not completely.” Israfil glares at him with narrowed eyes. “I think that’s a construct or something. Crowley, help, I don’t know the word.”

“Projection. A solidified projection.” Crowley steps down onto the street, cricket bat resting over his shoulder, but goes no further. Israfil stands at his left; Aziraphale to his right. Israfil looks a bit startled when the Doctor steps up next to him instead of hiding behind a Celestial shield, but hiding isn’t really the way the Doctor operates.

“I didn’t know if you’d be willing to see me,” Samael says, and that cinches it; Donna shudders at the sound of his voice. It’s completely, utterly normal, and yet it makes her want to run screaming right back into the shop.

She won’t, though. She’s dealt with worse things than this.

“Is he waving a bloody white flag?” Martha asks in flat disbelief.

“Isn’t it a quaint little tradition? I did pick up on a few bits of knowledge during my time locked away.” Samael walks forward and steps onto the street before stopping. The shadows leave his face, revealing that if he wasn’t creepiness personified, he would be a good-looking bloke. His eyes are still solid black, though, not even a hint of white showing. “A piece of white cloth is considered enough to halt hostilities between two warring parties.”

“That only works as long as you don’t violate the terms,” Aziraphale says, the soft and cheerful bookseller absolutely lost to hard frost. If he weren’t so utterly taken with Crowley, _that_ is the type Donna would be looking to try dating again one day.

“Would I do that?” Samael asks, and Donna feels her grip on Jack’s arm tighten until he hisses in pain. She gives him a brief, apologetic look and makes her hand loosen up a bit.

“It’s not like it’d be the first time, would it?” Crowley sounds tired still, or maybe frustrated. “What do you want, Samael?”

“I was wondering if you were open to bargaining. There are several of you, after all, and only one of me.”

Mickey doesn’t sound impressed. “What sort of bargain?”

“I do not speak to you, _human_.” Samael spits the words like a scornful bastard. “You do not hold dominion over this planet. Only one of you can bargain with me.”

“Fine. What’s your offer?” Crowley asks. Aziraphale shifts in place, as if wanting to speak, but keeps his mouth shut.

“I’ll leave this insignificant little dirtball alone. I mean, I’ll be taking the rest of what is mine, of course, but the Earth? You may keep it, Crowley. These interesting little humans in this tiny corner of the universe can continue on in peace,” Samael says. “In exchange, I want only one thing.”

Crowley shifts until his entire posture reflects utter boredom. “And what’s that?”

Samael’s smile widens. “I want the Timeless Child.”

Donna clamps her other hand onto Jack’s arm when it suddenly feels as if the temperature plummets a good twenty degrees. Rose gasps aloud in what sounds quite a bit like recognition.

“Get fucked, Samael,” Crowley retorts.

“Oh, you definitely were away from Heaven for too long. They would be so happy to give up one life to save a multitude, wouldn’t they? That is the party line nowadays, right?” Samael asks, causing Donna to fight the urge to clamp her hands down over her ears. From the way the others are twitching, at least she isn’t the only one who’d really like Samael to shut up sometime yesterday.

“Just the Timeless Child, Crowley. Just her. Give her to me, and you’ll never need contend with me again,” Samael promises. “No one will ever find out what you did.”

“What I did.” Crowley lets out a brief laugh. “You’re really stupid enough to think I’d be ashamed of it, aren’t you?” He holds out his hand and breathes across his palm. “You can leave now.”

Samael screeches as fire springs up in a circle around him. Even at this distance, Donna can smell scorched fabric and hair.

“Oh, holy water _and_ holy fire. Seriously, so handy for vampires,” Rose mutters under her breath, and Adam lets out a high-pitched giggle.

Samael glares at them through the flames. “I’ll be back, Crowley. When I return, you will die. All of you will die!”

“Whatever. Try to wait until the sun comes up, all right? Hard to have a dramatic battle before the bloody sun rises,” Crowley responds, pitching his voice to reflect his lack of concern. Samael lets out one last pained howl as the holy fire flashes inward and then disappears in a cloudy puff of soot and ashes.

Donna feels her shoulders sag when Samael is gone, taking all of that bloody misery and heavy anger with him. _What an utter wanker_, she thinks.

“Who’s this Timeless Child?” Martha asks curiously. “I mean, not that we should give _anyone_ over to that bastard, but what’s he mean?”

“It’s no one.” Crowley spins on his heel and stalks right back into the bookshop so quickly he leaves everyone standing out on the walkway.

Martha recovers first, but she’s always been the first to put her foot down on anyone trying to evade her. Donna didn’t even have to know her very long to see _that_ trait. Martha dashes after Crowley, scowling. “What do you mean, it’s no one?”

“I mean that it’s _no one_,” Crowley is insisting when Donna makes it back inside. She isn’t much surprised when Aziraphale locks the door behind them all.

Martha crosses her arms. “You’re lying.”

“I’m not.” Crowley shakes his head in disgusted irritation. “Look, I haven’t eaten anything in over six months, so maybe save the holier-than-thou act until I feel less like I’m going to fall on my face, all right?”

“Fine,” Martha allows, almost growling. “But afterwards, you’re going to tell us what Samael means.”

“Nope. Shan’t,” Crowley replies. “Zira, please tell me which of these stupid takeaway containers is mine.”

“Your name is written on it in Celestial. I might’ve had our language on the brain,” Aziraphale says. “Which…means…I’ll probably have to sort them again. Sorry.”

“Look—” Martha starts in again, with all of her fiery stubbornness, but Crowley rounds on her.

“Dr. Jones,” Crowley starts, and then looks vaguely pleased. “I always kind of wanted to say that. Anyway: it’s not my place to talk about it, because it’s not _my_ secret. I’m a rude bastard, but there are some things you just don’t bloody well do, all right?”

Martha takes a step back. “I—all right. Sorry, then.”

“Sure.” Crowley finds the container that Aziraphale set aside for him, yanks a pair of chopsticks out of the air, and then goes to sit on the floor in a complete sulk.

“You’re being tetchy, sunshine.” Donna smiles when Crowley salutes her with two fingers without even bothering to look up. “You know, I just realized that you’re as pale as Israfil.” He hadn’t been that afternoon. Crowley hadn’t been anything Donna would call tan, but there had definitely been more color on his face, neck, and hands.

Crowley glances up, a bit of sliced lamb hanging from the end of his chopsticks. “Brand new body, haven’t been out in the sun yet.”

“I’m better at avoiding being burnt by it,” Israfil says in a dry voice, answering a question Donna hadn’t yet thought to ask. “He’s the gardener.”

“Do not talk shit about my garden, Brother.”

“Oooh, imam bayildi,” the Doctor coos over the takeaway box marked with her name in Gallifreyan. “Aren’t you pretty? Is that why you went back to the sunglasses, Crowley? Brand new eyes from the matter conversion bit?”

“Bright lights are no fun at the moment,” Crowley says in agreement, and then goes back to inhaling the kofta. It’s the fastest Donna has ever seen Crowley eat _anything_. He’s usually far more interested in drinking his nutrition, especially if that nutrition is fermented.

Donna shrugs, grabs up her dinner, and sits down on the floor opposite him. “Don’t seem fair, hogging a table when there’s plenty of floor,” she says in explanation. Besides, two of them putting everything else aside in order to bloody well eat something seems to prod the others into realizing that food is a grand idea. The next half-hour is almost soothing, nothing more than quiet conversation and the sounds of ten people destroying their way through every single bit of takeaway, including the extra chips and whatnot the grill had tossed in.

“Oh, this is bloody fascinating,” the Doctor mumbles under her breath. Donna glances over to find that the Doctor forgot the latter half of her dinner in favor of reading from two different scrolls. One is tilted just enough so that Donna can see the mathematical translations, which means the other must be the original.

Aziraphale frowns in adorable disgruntlement. “How on Earth did you get those?”

“What? They were on a table. It’s not like there was a Do Not Touch sign or anything,” the Doctor responds, not looking up from her back-and-forth reading of both scrolls.

“Would it have stopped you if there had been a sign?” Rose asks, grinning.

“No. Why?” the Doctor answers.

Aziraphale sighs. “Some things should be asked instead of assumed.”

“Yeah, but you never learn anything fun that way. Besides, I’m done with not being able to read this language. Could’ve saved me so much trouble when I was nine hundred years old.” The Doctor frowns. “It’d be nice if it stuck to one language, but it’s just two. I can manage two.”

“Are you actually learning it?” Israfil asks, looking more tolerant of the idea than Aziraphale.

The Doctor looks over at him for a moment. “Don’t ask me to speak it, because this isn’t exactly a pronunciation guide, but reading it? Sure, I’m about halfway there. Why?”

“That’s very clever,” Aziraphale admits.

The Doctor grins. “I did say I was. Wouldn’t lie about that,” she says, and goes right back to her translating.

Crowley snaps his fingers to get rid of his rubbish afterwards. Donna lets him do the same to hers, though not to the piece of carrot cake she’s sharing with Jack. Then Crowley gets up and wanders off to the back of the shop; she hears the creak of door hinges that immediately has Aziraphale looking up in expectation.

“Glasses, Crowley!” Aziraphale calls. Donna is not much surprised when an empty wine glass appears in front of her, one that’s wide and deep. Even Adam has one, which he regards with outright suspicion.

All of the bottles of wine pop into place, one per set of people, except for the very last. Crowley returns carrying it, prying out a cork before he tosses the corkscrew at Jack. Donna obeys his silent gesture and holds up her glass, watching as he pours it nearly two-thirds full of a dark red wine. He does the same for his own glass, but doesn’t bother to savor it.

“That’s not a happy drinking amount of wine. That’s a soften the blow amount of wine,” Donna says, swirling what’s in her glass as Jack swears under his breath.

“Eh.” Crowley picks up Adam’s glass, adds about a swallow, and puts it back down again. “Don’t tell your parents I did that. It’s their job to teach you to drink, not mine.”

“Mum likes tequila sunrises. I think I’ll stick with this, thanks,” Adam mutters, sniffing at the wine and making a face. “Why does it smell so bad?”

Crowley rolls his eyes and drops down onto the ground next to Aziraphale, who’s definitely pleased by the company. “That’s a 1947 Cheval Blanc, you heathen.”

Jack stops swearing at the corkscrew and stares at Crowley. “This bottle is worth a _lot_ of money.”

“Does that mean you’re not going to drink it? Because if not, I want it back.”

Israfil glares at Jack. “Don’t you bloody dare hand that over to him, not when I’m sitting right next to you waiting with a glass.”

“I’m not giving up a wine that’s worth more than the mortgage on my flat, that’s for sure,” Mickey says under his breath. Donna has no idea how they uncorked their bottle so fast, but they are carrying about a _lot _of gadgets in their kit. Alien corkscrew is definitely a thing that exists.

The Doctor cheats and uses her sonic on the bottle Crowley teleported over to her and Rose. “1947 was a good year for grapes,” the Doctor comments, sniffing at the open bottle. “Not so much if you wanted cool weather, but the grapes liked it.”

Rose gives her a nudge. “Shut up and pour. I want to be a bit pissed after the last few days I’ve had.”

“Finally!” Jack exclaims once he’s argued the wine bottle into submission. He pours a glass, hands the bottle over to Israfil, and returns to picking at the piece of cake he and Donna were sharing. “Why are we drinking expensive wine on the floor of this shop? Because I usually don’t drink. Too many bad habits.”

“I told these two troublemakers already,” Crowley says, “but right when this mess first started, we were granted one of the few bits of assistance that Above could provide. Nearly melted my mobile phone to get it, pushing the signal through Tenebris’s dimensional barrier, but gaining a prophecy was better than nothing at all.”

“Why would a prophecy be the only assistance you can get?” Martha asks. “This isn’t bloody _Harry Potter_.”

Donna nearly chokes on her next sip of wine when Aziraphale reaches out and clamps his hand over Crowley’s mouth. “Please do not mention those books again, dear. Crowley finds the conclusion of the series to be rather infuriating, and there are only so many ways I can convince him not to curse an author.”

Rose raises an eyebrow. “Be a blessin’ now, though, wouldn’t it?”

“My dear, Crowley is _very_ creative,” Aziraphale says. “It’s just wisest not to chance it. Shall we continue?”

“Words are the only help you can get because time is an issue, right?” Jack tilts his wine glass in Crowley’s direction. “Those two dimensional planes are out of synch with the Earth by now. Communication is one thing, but you don’t talk like your people travel in time.”

Crowley glares at Aziraphale until Aziraphale cautiously removes his hand from Crowley’s mouth. Aziraphale looks relieved when nothing about children’s books spills out. “Some rules you just can’t get around,” Crowley says. “One spot to another on the same dimensional plane? Pfft, easy. One dimensional layer to another when you’re also dealing with everything included in that transition? Not so much, especially when we’re talking several days’ difference now. It can be done, but…it would be a waste of energy. Besides, it wouldn’t really help. Might even make things worse. I’m so glad it’s not my job to fix that.”

“This isn’t my first prophecy game,” the Doctor says, and Donna nods. Definitely not after Pompeii, it’s not. “What’s the entire prophecy?”

Israfil glances at the Doctor before quoting: “_This puzzle box must be solved from within, not from without. The pieces will come together within the trap. Each one fits into the other, no matter the divide of time and space. Among them lie two secrets, each a part of the other. When these secrets are laid bare, the trap will collapse_.”

“Solved from within. No help from the outside,” Martha translates at once. “’Cept you, apparently,” she adds, glancing at the Doctor.

“Yeah, but I’m supposed to be here. That’s different,” the Doctor replies. “The puzzle box is the trap, the trap being Earth trapped behind a dimensional barrier while stuck in a time loop.”

Mickey lets his head thump against the side of the bookshelf he’s leaning against. “That makes _us_ the bloody puzzle pieces. Course it’d be us. We’re all here because we were yours,” he points at the Doctor, “back when you still looked like those two gingers.”

The Doctor shakes her head. “It’s not entirely just about travelin’ with me. The rest of the prophecy, remember? Each fits into the other, no matter the divide of time and space. That’s what marked who’d be here. Martha, Mickey—you not only traveled with me, but the two of you got married. Donna, you and I literally shared what makes me who I am. Rose is…” The Doctor glances at her. “Rose is connected to the TARDIS, so that makes her connected to me by default, even without the, uh, relationship. Thing.”

“You’re such a romantic,” Rose comments, grinning at the miffed look on the Doctor’s face.

“Jack, uh, he shares in that connection, just in a different way,” the Doctor adds, looking very much like she’d prefer to be hiding under the hood of her coat again.

Mickey tilts his head. “All right, but then we’ve got this Celestial lot here. Aside from the fact that one of them went and really pissed off this Samael bloke, where do they come in?”

Crowley’s voice is oddly flat when he answers. “Israfil and I are twins. I’ve known Aziraphale for over six thousand years. _And_ we’re dating, and if you say a bloody word about connections in that context, Jack Harkness, you will have another of your brief encounters with Azrael.”

Jack quickly raises both hands in surrender. “Nope, I’m good!”

Rose’s brow furrows in bafflement. “Who’s this Azrael, then?”

“Death,” all four of the Celestials say together.

“Oh. Right, then.” Rose glances at Adam. “So, then you…”

“They’re my godparents. Oh, and we stopped the world from ending together, though only sorta together for Israfil, so you know. Connections?” Adam shrugs. “Close ’nuff, I guess.”

“Then I met Donna in Knightsbridge on Thursday,” Israfil says. “That triggered the bloody meta-thing.”

“Meta-crisis,” the Doctor corrects. “Your face alone should _not_ have been enough, though. Those walls were built to last. I certainly tested it to make certain, and that was with the correct face an’ everything.”

“Here’s where the blow-softening bit is meant to come in.” Crowley leans forward with the bottle and tops off Donna’s glass. “What would it take to weaken those walls? What would weaken that sort of mental guardianship to trigger this meta-crisis thing?”

Donna stares at him in blank incomprehension before it comes crashing down on her. “Oh, God. Grief. Loneliness. Shock. All three of them. Even if I hadn’t met Israfil, those walls were already breaking down.”

The Doctor rounds on her in concern. “Donna? What did I miss?”

“Nothing that was your fault, promise.” Donna picks at the last bit of cake after Jack hands it over. “Shaun and my mum. I lost them both, last spring, in a car crash.”

“Oh, Donna. I’m so sorry,” the Doctor whispers, but Crowley isn’t done. Donna almost wishes he was, but she already has a terrible feeling she knows exactly where this is going.

“That’s the timing of it all, though, isn’t it?” Crowley’s eyes are masked by his glasses, but Donna knows he’s staring directly at her. “You told me yourself that the driver who hit your husband and your mum had a clean driving record. Absolutely pristine, never so much as a speeding ticket. They live on a busy road, back out of their drive, and just the once, just when it’s your loved ones in the way, they suddenly don’t remember to look.”

Donna has to put her wine glass down, or it’s going to be a shattered mess on the wall. “Please tell me you’re just talking out of your backside.”

“You know I’m not,” Crowley says, but at least he sounds apologetic about it. “Part of this entire stupid situation is based on Samael’s desire for revenge.” He briefly removes his glasses, revealing the anger in his golden eyes. “Of course Samael would arrange that sort of bollocksing shit. One way or another, he wanted the Doctor there to be here on this planet, same time as me, in the same place. If you’d died from the meta-crisis, Wilf would have called her here. When you didn’t die, Samael had to change the plan. The time loop didn’t begin until after you survived the meta-crisis, Donna.”

“Samael was also working with flawed information, I think,” Aziraphale says. “The plan he and Tenebris built together was based around the idea that they would be dealing with one retired demon,” He pats Crowley’s leg when Crowley hisses, “and one Time Lord who would be rather upset by the sudden loss of a good friend. They didn’t remember to change the marks meant to imprison Crowley, and they didn’t know Israfil was alive, that the healers were restored. Instead of putting Donna in the path of death, the fool placed her directly into the path of survival.”

“What ’bout me, then?” Rose asks. “There is no way he could’ve known when I’d bounce off that black hole. Is there?”

“Time travel, Rose. You still did that bouncing bit well before Samael escaped that prison. He would have known about that little visit of yours for hundreds of years,” the Doctor answers, sighing. “All he needed to do was adjust where in time he was after his escape, and then…wait.”

“That means Tenebris killed my husband and my mum to assist her bloody boyfriend.” Donna squeezes her eyes shut for a moment. She isn’t going to cry. She can have another good cry over it later. Right now, she’s too bloody angry. “Yeah, all right. If you don’t let me help you kill the bastard, I’ll haunt you to the end of the universe, sunshine.”

“If it can be done without you dying? Sure.” Crowley passes the wine bottle back into Donna’s eager hands when she realizes she’s drained her glass. The bottle doesn’t seem to be getting any emptier. Neat trick, that. “And I mean that, by the way. Revenge isn’t any fun if you’re too dead to enjoy it.”

“Here’s to living through to enjoying the revenge part, then.” Donna holds out her glass in bitter expectation.

Crowley clinks his glass against hers. “Absolutely.”

“I’m down with that.” Jack holds out his glass to Israfil, who seems bemused about repeating the toast. It happens again between the Doctor and Rose, then Martha and Mickey. Adam shrugs and toasts to the idea of surviving revenge with Aziraphale, who is all but rolling his eyes over the concept. _Such_ an angel, that one.

“You mentioned before that you were the youngest of the first seven,” Martha says, frowning. “Capital Letters for First Seven, I’m assuming.”

Crowley draws out his response. “Yep.”

“Seriously, you even talk like him, and it’s _weird_,” Mickey mutters. Donna glances over at the Doctor, who is shaking her head. Not denial, Donna thinks, just a rather blatant request for everyone to please shut up about that.

Martha gives Mickey a stern look for the interruption. “First Seven what, then? The first to Fall to that lower dimension, the toxic one?”

Crowley leans away from her in blatant discomfort. “No. I don’t even know who the first of the Fallen were. Everything was too chaotic for that.”

“It must be recorded in the Library somewhere,” Aziraphale says.

“Yeah, but I don’t actually want to know.” Crowley shakes his head. “Too many of those names—I know who they are _now_ just as they were _then_. I don’t even want to discuss this as it is.”

“Then, to go sideways on the topic: these repeating Fridays were meant to give Samael more time to make this arrangement into even more of a trap than what he initially planned,” Aziraphale says.

“Samael thinks so, but he already believes he knows how this is going to end.” Crowley holds up two fingers. “Two secrets, Zira. Think about the rest of the prophecy. Samael knows what those two secrets are already, the ones that are meant to collapse the trap. Course, collapsing the trap probably means needing to make Samael dead first, but those two secrets are so very important. Despite what that wanker believes, I think it’s the reveal that’s going to tell us exactly how to kill him.”

“Because it’s not a fixed point in time,” Rose says. “We can change it. We just need to understand _how_ to change it.”

Adam gives Crowley a powerful, piercing stare that looks utterly alien on his baby-faced features. “On Friday repeat number two, you said you were the first secret, but you didn’t know what the other one was.”

“Yeah.” Crowley’s expression goes flat and unhappy again. “I’m glad it’s been long enough that one of those secrets can be discussed without accidentally breaking Existence.”

“What secret?” Israfil asks in surprise.

Aziraphale’s head whips around in surprise. “You don’t know?”

“Of course I don’t!” Israfil protests. “I wouldn’t be asking if I did!”

Crowley seems ready to hide his face in his hands. “That’s because there is only one other being in existence who knows, so would the two of you please knock off with that? I’m about to tell you, anyway.” He looks to Martha. “Understanding what we mean by the First Seven requires a bit of a theology lesson.”

He snaps his fingers, and they’re somewhere else, standing in complete and utter darkness. Adam, Israfil, Crowley, and Aziraphale immediately reveal their wings, which casts ghostly patterns of light over everyone’s faces.

Mickey looks like he’s gritting his teeth against nausea. “Can you maybe stop whisking us about, mate?”

“We didn’t go anywhere. It’s just an illusion,” Crowley explains, amused by Mickey’s reaction. “So! Typical story of the universe: in the beginning, there was Light. The Big Bang. Cosmic hand job. Whatever makes you happy.” It isn’t light that bursts forth from the dark nothing, but fire that fills the void with brilliant flame. “The birth of the universe was also the birth of conscious thought. Can’t exactly bring a universe to life without it.”

The Doctor studies the fire with a smile. “There were two consciousnesses born with the birth of the universe, though. Two brand new minds, which meant there wasn’t one universe in one place, but two.”

Crowley stares at the Doctor with his jaw hanging open, same as Israfil is doing. Aziraphale and Adam look confused by their reaction. “How the _fuck_ do you even know that?” Israfil asks.

“Oh, we’ve met, the Solitract universe and I. Had to be a bit brief, since it would’ve broken existence to hang about, but they were quite lovely. Liked frogs, too,” the Doctor adds.

Crowley slaps both hands over his face and makes such an indignant, angry noise that Donna has to choke back laughter. Israfil and Crowley might have the same face, but Crowley’s the one with the gestures that make the whole thing funny, if a bit eerie. “Please tell me how the fuck you crossed the very first dimensional barrier to ever exist in order to visit with the Undivided Consciousness?”

“Oh. Well, they got lonely.” The Doctor is visibly startled by Crowley’s reaction. “So, they opened a portal in a mirror in a house in Norway—”

“Nrrggk.” That takes the eerie feeling out of things right away; that is very much _not_ a Doctor noise. “Fine. Sure. Why not.” Crowley drops his hands to stare at the Doctor. “Keep going, then.”

“What happened to the theology?” Donna asks, smirking at Crowley.

“Congratulations, it comes with bonus overtime,” Crowley retorts. “This is still theology. It’s just not _your_ theology.”

“So, we went through the mirror portal—”

Crowley makes a despairing sound. Aziraphale just sighs in resignation. It would be really funny if they both didn’t seem so concerned about it all.

The Doctor raises an eyebrow. “Anyway, me and the Fam ended up in a weird place, met a bloke who called himself Ribbons of the Seven Stomachs. He called that place an Anti-Zone. He introduced himself, bowed, and said he only worked in deals or trade. Sound familiar?”

“You ended up in…” Crowley growls in frustration and stares up at the blackness of the missing ceiling. “YES, I REALLY DO KNOW EXACTLY WHAT I DID TO DESERVE THIS, THANK YOU!”

“Ribbons of the Seven Stomachs,” Jack repeats, bemused look on his face. “He sounds like a charmer.”

Crowley pinches the bridge of his nose and hisses under his breath. “Yes, good guess, you really did meet another demon. Nasty bugger, too. What happened to him, by the way? Ribbons went missing a couple of years ago.”

“Oh. He got eaten by those flesh moth things.” The Doctor is starting to make that face, the belated recognition of having stumbled into something so much bigger than she’d first thought. “That wasn’t actually a pocket dimension between universes, was it?”

“Nope. Hope you enjoyed your brief stint in Hell, _and never step through an active mirror portal ever again_,” Crowley grinds out through clenched teeth.

“Why would Hell be the buffer between two conscious universes?” Martha asks.

“Thank you; smart question.” Crowley takes a breath and blows it out in an explosive sigh. “Hell wasn’t originally Hell. It was called Gehenna, and no, I don’t mean the valley here on Earth. At first, Gehenna was meant to be nothing more than a divide, so two conscious entities could sort-of-exist in the same universe without everything going pomegranate-shaped. Then Gehenna became a convenient rubbish disposal for types you didn’t want lurking around anymore,” he adds bitterly.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale whispers.

Crowley shakes his head and holds up both hands. “Nope, I’m fine. Continuing on with the bloody _point_ of all this…”

He snaps his fingers again, and that first bright light becomes a contained fire, with all of them standing around it in a circle. “You start out with a consciousness in the universe—and no, it doesn’t really matter what you call Her, so don’t panic about it,” Crowley says to Martha, who only grimaces in response. “Said consciousness realized fairly quickly that being the only thing in the universe was bloody fucking dull. They were surrounded by raw material that was already demonstrating how to make new things, so the new consciousness began pulling off pieces of themselves, mixing them with that raw material, in order to create the first seven _living_ beings in existence, one at a time.”

A glowing sword appears above the flames, one with a blue blade and golden handle. “First there was Michael, guardian of existence, and I mean that literally. If all else fails, he steps in. Fortunately, he’s only needed to do it once.”

Another sword appears to the right of the first, but this one doesn’t glow. It burns with the same fire Crowley has contained in front of them. “Then there was Gabriel. Michael protects, but Gabriel leads the charge of war.”

A white rose appears to the left of the blue glowing sword. “What Gabriel destroys with war, Uriel blesses afterwards with the grace of new life.”

The golden crown is delicate, more like a coronet, one that glows with its own gentle fire. “Saraquel, who rules over mortal lives, but rule is balanced by responsibility. If you’re not protecting and guarding those you rule, you’re not doing it right.”

Silver scales appear in the air between the crown and the rose. “Raguel reads the balance of Celestial lives. She was charged with making certain we behaved ourselves, and she measures the weight of our souls.”

“She’s the one who you asked to do the measuring thing. When Samael was being a complete dick,” Jack says to Crowley.

Crowley nods. “She was, yes.”

Israfil picks up where Crowley leaves off. “The last two of these first seven were created together, inspired by the existence of the first binary stars to form. Unlike the others, who are siblings by title, the final two, twins, are family by genetic definition, created to be reflections of each other.” A dark staff, just like the one Israfil is holding, appears next to the golden crown. “Both were gifted with the ability to heal, a power that manifested the same between them, but different also. We usually make jokes about which of us is the sixth and which of us is the seventh. Keeps people on their toes.”

“But it’s not really a joke so much as a deflection.” Crowley tilts his head as the last symbol appears, a black serpent, a living version of the tattoo on the right side of Crowley’s face. “Raphael was named first, bearing a staff of divine balance. That makes him the sixth. I was named last. That means I’m the seventh, like it or not.”

“What’s not to like about that?” Donna asks, glancing at Crowley.

Crowley grimaces. “Because seven is a prime number and a divine number. Pain in the arse.”

Martha is staring at the twins. Donna abruptly realizes that they’re _all_ staring at Crowley and Israfil. “So then…the two of you are…” Martha trails off, unable to say the words.

“The oldest things in creation aside from creation? Yeah. We’re older than everyone in this room put together.” Crowley glances at Aziraphale. “Even you, darling. Sorry.”

Aziraphale looks a bit boggled. “You’ve never said a word.”

Israfil shrugs. “It’s not as bad for me. I missed out on over six thousand years of existing.”

“It sort of fucks with your head if you dwell on it, anyway,” Crowley says. “I try not to. Ever.”

“Then why don’t either of you have the power to take down Samael?”

Crowley gives Mickey a look that’s just baffled enough not to be snide. “Because that is a stupid question?”

“More politely,” Israfil interjects, “What does age have to do with power? That would be like treating the first-born humans as the most powerful of your species to ever exist, and every birth since then has been such a trickle-down effect that you’re now little more than wraiths in comparison—which you’re not, by the way. Quite the opposite, actually.”

“So…” Adam prods at the nearest symbol, the rose, which temporarily wraps itself around his hand before returning to its place in the circle around the fire. “These symbols are the representations of creation. Of how to make a universe, I mean.”

“Yes and no. The universe existed with the birth of that consciousness. This is how you create a _living_ universe instead of an empty expanse of uninhabited nothing,” Crowley explains.

“Which the Solitract consciousness never figured out,” the Doctor says. “Oh, I feel bad for them.”

Crowley shrugs, unconcerned. “They forgot to invent time. They’ll figure it out eventually.”

“Okay, just so I’m tracking this, here I go,” Jack says. “Without these concepts, stars formed and died from that initial burst of energy, that consciousness, but nothing else happened. You’re saying life requires more than just rocket fuel, it requires…these things. These _ideas._”

Israfil nods. “The universe can’t change without them.”

Rose points at the serpent. “But not all of these ideas are represented by symbols. I mean—you have six physical items, but that one there? That’s you. That’s _literally_ you, Crowley. Why six physical items and one living thing?”

“I think I know.” The Doctor points at each item in turn, starting with the blue sword. “Defence. Conflict. Life. Community. Consciousness. Survival.” She pauses at the serpent. “To spread life through an empty cosmos, you just need one more thing.”

The Doctor turns around and stares at Crowley, looking more spooked than Donna has _ever_ seen. “Time.”

“Infinity,” Crowley counters.

The Doctor frowns. “Same thing.”

“Point of view.” Crowley smirks at her. “I could do this all day.”

“Could you maybe explain what you’re snipping about, then?” Mickey requests.

“I like how Wilf put it the other day. Space and time go together,” Crowley says. “They’re linked. Space needs time to grow and expand; time needs space in order to exist.”

Mickey snorts. “That didn’t help.”

“In Dardanus. 1020 BCE.” The Doctor takes a breath. “Madonna wasn’t looking for a genetic match. She was looking for you in particular.”

Donna watches the slight changes in Crowley’s expression as he considers it. She’s still learning to interpret the twitchiness, but she’s pretty sure he’s nervous. “Might’ve been. Or maybe it was both.”

The Doctor, however, is _definitely_ nervous. “Why?”

“You’d need to ask your Time Lady companion for that answer. Why Madonna, anyway?” Crowley suddenly asks. “Why didn’t she go with something a bit less dramatic?”

“Her first choice at a human name was Helen. I thought maybe that might’ve been a bad idea,” the Doctor says. “Trojan War and all. Why you, Crowley?”

“Still don’t know.” Crowley slips off his glasses and folds them up to put them away. “What I _do_ know is that Madonna was able to recognize something very few people in existence are capable of: she read what is written into my skin, and understood exactly what it means.”

“Zaherael.” Donna glances over at Israfil, who looks far too somber for her taste. He almost looks bloody _scared_. “The one time I asked you what that symbol on your face meant, you showed me the stars and told me that was the only hint you were allowed to give me. What does it mean?”

Crowley raises both eyebrows and then holds out his hand. Donna watches as a copy of his tattoo forms over his palm, hovering in the air, shining gold instead of black. Then the two ends that were separated, pointing in different directions, turn towards each other and connect. The moment that connection happens, the flat symbol enlarges and becomes a sphere of golden lines that intersect in an unending pattern of light. “You can’t represent time or space with most of the symbols we’ve come to associate them with,” he says. “A clock is a limitation. A star is fire. The void between the stars is nothingness. A calendar can only define certain aspects of time.

“Out of all of us, I was the only one who could look at the vast expanse of the universe and feel no fear,” Crowley says, his voice soft and reverent. Probably a bit embarrassed, too, Donna decides. “Infinity is space, and time is infinity. I am the Seventh; I’m both. It’s why I can freeze time. I understand the way time flows, the way the universe grows. I understand people, even when I didn’t want to, because infinity is all that ever was, all that is, and all that will ever be. People were going to be a part of that the moment that first consciousness willingly divided Herself in order to grant life to the universe.”

“That’s why you call the Solitract consciousness the Undivided Consciousness,” the Doctor realizes. “Because they never gave up any part of themselves to make something new.”

Crowley gives her a wry look. “Not if that consciousness still hasn’t figured out how not to be alone, no. But on this side of the divide, we all guard a piece of our creator’s original divisions. Time and space won’t cease to be if I die, not anymore, but it would weaken the others. It would weaken _Her_. That’s what Samael is counting on. That’s why he’s convinced he’s going to win.”

“Especially with our lives tied together the way they are.” Israfil looks pained. “If you die, so do I, and then that’s two lost from the Seven. With as much power as he’s gathered, Samael could actually pull this off.”

“You know this doesn’t make me omniscient,” Crowley offers to Martha; the poor dear looks as if she’s ready to swallow her own tongue in shock. “Not any more than it does the Time Lord over there. Time changes too much to really define infinity beyond a handful of moments, what she calls fixed points.”

Crowley closes his hand, and the spherical infinity symbol vanishes. “None of us are omniscient or infallible. Not even God.”

Martha puts her hand to her chest. “Sorry, not trying to—I’m so lapsed at church it shouldn’t matter, but that felt like being slapped by blasphemy.”

Crowley rolls his eyes. “It really shouldn’t. She’s been trying to tell people that for years. The entire fucking flood happened because She fucked up, and that’s a self-admitted thing.”

“What sort of fuck-up?” Mickey asks. “I’m not really all that much fussed; it’s all folk stories to me.”

“The Nephilim,” Aziraphale answers. “Children of Celestials and humans. On the outside, we seem to be a perfectly compatible species, but biologically, we were not. Not when humanity was still young. That blending of blood created a plague, a magically transmitted disease. It would have wiped out all life on this planet had it not been stopped.”

“That sounds like complete nonsense,” Rose says. “I mean, I get that it’s probably not, but a magically transmitted disease?”

Jack glances over at her. “I’ve seen it happen before, though we’re usually calling it psychically transmitted, not magic. Hell, I’ve seen someone introduce that sort of plague on purpose. It’s _really_ not pretty.”

The Doctor worries at her lower lip. “Before I was born, there used to be eighteen inhabited worlds in the Kasterborous constellation. Then one day, a disease emerged, one that was psychic in nature. It wiped out the entire planet’s population within a year. No cure, no defence, no mercy. It was utterly relentless. A few Time Lords attempted to go back to the beginning of the outbreak, trying to identify the plague and stop it before it could spread, but all they got out of it was dying. Gallifrey worried a bit that the plague might jump planet, so they burnt that eighteenth world to ash, turned it into rubble. Not a bit of life was left behind when they were done. Those that died trying to stop that plague is part of what originated the Time Lords’ policy of non-interference. I was always a bit bad at following those sorts of rules, though.”

“What I’m really getting out of this is you lot saying that when it boils down to it, this Samael is just another well-informed extra-dimensional nutjob who wants to rule the universe.” Mickey takes Martha’s hand and grins. “Just another typical day at the office for me, then.”

“Wow. Your job sucks,” Crowley says, and Donna can’t quite help the spew of laughter that spills out from behind her hand. She tried to keep it in, honest, but it didn’t work.

Crowley smirks at Donna and then snaps his fingers. They’re all still in the bookshop, right where they were sitting before Crowley decided to put on a literal light show about the beginning of the universe.


	16. Timeless Child

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It’s good to be a bit weird. Keeps things interesting.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so done arguing with this chapter. Time to move on to arguing with the next one.

“Why does Samael want this Timeless Child person, then?” Adam asks, and then scowls. “He doesn’t mean me, does he, since Celestials don’t care about gender an’ all? Because that’s a way cooler thing to be called than the other stuff I’m stuck with.”

“No, he doesn’t mean you.” Crowley picks up his discarded glass, regarding the dark wine with golden eyes. Donna realizes his pupils are round instead of serpentine and thinks he must have shifted things a bit to cut back on the light. “Samael wants a shortcut, and he’ll get it over my dead body.”

“Get _who_?” Martha asks in frustration.

“Me.” Donna turns her head in surprise to regard the Doctor. She’s staring down into a glass that’s empty of all but a pathetic drip of wine at the bottom. “The Timeless Child. It’s one of the things I’ve been called. Until recently, I hadn’t been called that for a very long time. Bloody Stenza.”

“Who called you that?” Israfil asks, his eyes narrowed in what Donna is starting to recognize as the concern of a Healer.

“Oh, it was just kids being kids, the lot of them still at the pulling-the-wings-off-the-butterfly stage, not knowing any better. Well, most of them,” the Doctor amends quietly. “My mum always said that my name was written in the Medusa Cascade, and I was still young, myself, so I told them. I didn’t know yet that there was nothing written there at all. Those kids I grew up with knew my real name, so they took that empty nebula and turned my name into a joke.”

Adam looks so sad it makes Donna’s heart break a bit. “Why’d they go and do that, then?”

The Doctor lowers her glass. “I was always a bit different. Smarter. Faster. Stubborn as a mule. It was pretty obvious the first time I opened my mouth and words spilled out that I would be going to the Academy. Timeless Child was one of the nicer things those children called me. Outcast. Abandoned. Those two were always worse. Timeless Child was an insult. Outcast was because I didn’t fit. I didn’t really have any friends until the Academy, and even then I always picked up the weird ones. Abandoned because even on Gallifrey, where it shouldn’t have mattered, I didn’t have a father.” The Doctor pauses thoughtfully. “Most of that lot ended up working for the government. Sort of fitting, really.”

“Yeah, but…” Adam is struggling with the right question, but all that comes out is, “_Why?_”

“I dunno,” the Doctor says. “Kids are weird. You’d know that, right?”

Adam ducks his head and smiles a little. “Yeah. I’m definitely weird.”

“Not what I meant, but…nothing wrong with that. It’s good to be a bit weird. Keeps things interesting,” the Doctor tells him. “Kids, adults, any age, doesn’t matter—sometimes they lash out at things they don’t understand. They hate it, try to demean it, try to make it give up, go away. If it’s not worth anything, if they make it go, then they don’t have to spend so much time thinking about what’s going wrong inside their own heads.”

“Why’d Samael call you that, then, if it’s not your name?” Adam asks.

“Because Samael knew it would hurt.” The set of Crowley’s jaw is so mindful of the Doctor struggling with rage. Memories rush in, all but stealing Donna’s breath. “Names should be a shield or a secret in your heart, not something that hurts.”

“That’s definitely the voice of experience,” Jack comments.

“Yeah.” Crowley downs the rest of the wine in his glass in one long swallow. “I Fell, and they took my name, replaced it with an insult based on the way I crawled out of a burning pit of sulfur. Crawly.”

“Burning sulfur,” Mickey repeats in disbelief. “I’m gonna guess that it wasn’t fatal because you’re a sort-of-alien, but why burning sulfur?”

Crowley shrugs. “If you’re falling at something approaching light speed, it’s softer to land on than the ground.”

The Doctor winces in sympathy. “That’s true enough. That’d definitely softer than a train roof. You must’ve still been on fire, though, crawling out of something like that.”

Crowley tilts his head, telegraphing a lack of concern that is so false Donna wants to slap him again. “I was a bit busy immediately afterward trying not to be killed. Definitely had other things on my mind than fire. I forgot my real name after that, or I buried it. Probably a bit of both.” He looks at his empty glass in disappointment, but Donna has a firm hold on their wine bottle. “Crowley was a choice. What about you, Time Lord?”

“Doctor was a choice, a promise I made to myself.” The Doctor looks relieved when Rose reaches out to take her hand again. “I looked around at other Time Lords, all of them thinking how they were above it all, and decided that I didn’t want to be like them. Had to be patient and wait for the right opportunity to bugger off and leave. Never been so good at being patient, but it was worth it.

“After I took my title in the Academy, I worked hard to hide my real name. I did such a good job that after about a century, only my mother remembered it.” The Doctor grins. “Helped a bit that it was mostly because people were cursing me by that title for mucking it up when they kept trying to play silly buggers.”

“Your entire career is mucking it up for people playing silly buggers,” Martha says with a smile.

“Which, to be fair, nearly three thousand years old and you’re not dead yet,” Donna teases. “Good job.”

The Doctor beams. “Thanks! Anyway, it got to the point where it seemed like my real name was a secret, and not just because I didn’t want anyone trying to turn it into rubbish again. Names have power, but this felt a bit different. Then around about two faces ago, everyone and their enemy started to turn up, _demanding_ to know my name, like it was the key to unlocking some secret of the universe. That’s definitely the sort of thing that’ll convince you that some secrets are meant to stay that way.”

“Did that start in 1996, perhaps?” Aziraphale asks, a curious lift to his brow as he raises a glass that is almost empty. He is also holding Crowley back from taking the wine bottle next to him with one hand, so Donna decides she was definitely making the right call about keeping hold of the other one.

“What, that? No, no, that was something else,” the Doctor replies. “That was…uh, well, I’ve made a _lot_ of people very angry with me over the years—”

“Never would’ve guessed,” Rose mumbles, giggling when the Doctor glares at her.

“Well, they all teamed up and decided that the best solution to their problems would be to lock me in a box that I couldn’t get out of two thousand years ago, so I wouldn’t be out and about making their lives difficult any longer. They couldn’t kill me, so the goal was to erase me from existence,” the Doctor explains. “Even with me _not_ stuck in the box, the entire idea caused problems that just grew worse as the centuries passed. You can’t really do things like that without side effects piling up. Those idiots broke time and existence to such an extent that it created a crack in the universe that just kept growing. That’s why the lot of you know that this is go-round number two for timelines in this era.”

“Rebooting Time from the failure point.” Crowley takes a moment to rest his face in his hands. “Yeah, that’d do it.”

“It was either reboot Time or see existence end, and I’m rather fond of existence, since I happen to live in it,” the Doctor says. “Course, I almost wrote myself out of existence anyway trying to fix it, which would have suited that idiot lot just fine, but that sort of thing doesn’t work as long as there are still people about who remember you.”

Donna doesn’t miss it when Israfil and Crowley stare at each other. “Yeah. That’s…that’s just about how it works,” Crowley says.

Israfil huffs out an irritated sigh between his clenched teeth. “All right, I can’t bloody stand it any longer. What did you _do_, Brother?”

“Apparently, I failed in my life goal in regards to how many people I can piss off at once,” Crowley retorts. “I mean, I’m envious, here. I’ve only managed to make a handful of people want to erase me from existence, but it sounds like she’s managed entire hordes. That takes serious bloody talent!”

“Zaherael!”

Crowley stands up in a fluid motion of limbs, which is pretty much how he does everything. “Doctor.” He crooks one finger in a come-hither motion.

The Doctor, ever curious, gets up from the floor and joins him. “What is it?”

“You’re still carrying around that bit of energy I gave you, right? The one that’s meant for the Medusa Cascade?” Crowley asks.

Donna stands up, almost pulling Jack off the floor with her, when Israfil and Aziraphale are abruptly on their feet. It wasn’t shock or alarm so much as the blink-and-you’ll miss-it trick they sometimes pull. Martha and Mickey get up; Adam glances around at all of the adults, shrugs, and decides that standing up is apparently the thing to be doing.

“Oh! Yes, totally have that here somewhere.” The Doctor pats down her arms and then digs into her coat pockets. She produces the globe of swirling light, sea-green intermixed with gold and hints of red and holds it out to him. “Here you go!”

“You kept it in your pocket.” Crowley makes a strangled-kettle sort of noise. “Right, why not?” Then he takes her hand and folds her fingers over that glowing ball of multi-colored light. “No. This isn’t for me. It’s for you. I did tell you that you were going to need it later, and later just became right now.”

The Doctor holds the flickering energy in her hand. “All right. What am I doing with this, then?”

“I can’t finish the Medusa Cascade,” Crowley says. “And it’s not entirely because I’ve forgotten how. It’s because I don’t know what it’s supposed to look like. But you? You know _exactly_ what it’s supposed to look like. Your mum was right; it’s supposed to be your name.”

“I bloody well am _not_ putting that up there!” the Doctor protests at once, scowling. “I made my name hard to find for a reason!”

Crowley takes a step back and shoves his hands into his denim pockets. “Then, clever Time Lord, write your name in a language that no one else in the universe can translate.”

The Doctor’s mouth falls open in angry denial before she pauses. “One that no one else can translate. Celestial. Oh! Uh—how do I do that? Not the writing part. The using this thing part.”

Crowley glances down at the Doctor’s hands before he looks her in the eyes. “Imagination is one of the most important parts of creation. You can’t think of new things to do without it. Demons are supposed to lose the ability to create and imagine when they Fall, because they lose touch with creation itself. I always thought that was a bit much, refused to go along with the idea. Imagination and will can hold things together when every other force in the universe says they should be falling apart.”

“You mean that I just need to want it,” the Doctor translates. “Usually it’s me using too many words.”

“You’re still using too many words,” Crowley responds, rolling his eyes. “Shut up and fix it already!”

The Doctor cups the sea-green and gold-dominant energy in both hands. “I’ve wanted it for long enough. You’d think it would be easy,” she murmurs, and then closes her eyes. Donna doesn’t think the Doctor is aware of what she’s doing until she presses her hands to her chest and that ball of energy vanishes against her breast.

“Oh!” The Doctor’s eyes shoot open. “Oh, was that it? Is that all? That should be harder to do, shouldn’t it? I mean it really should, that sort of potential for change is why I wanted to run screaming from the bloody Untempered Schism in the first place!”

Crowley frowns. “What the fuck is an Untempered Schism?”

“Oh, it’s a…a…” The Doctor flaps her hand around as she searches for the right word. “It’s an Eye, a tear in the fabric of reality, a gated one, so it’ll never get worse. Through that Eye, you can see the whole of time and space.”

“You said it terrified you. Back when the Master had control of the Earth, you said it was terrifying. That you ran from it,” Martha says quietly.

“Oh, yeah. I mean, stick an eight-year-old kid in front of infinity?” The Doctor swallows. “It wasn’t the potential that was terrifying. It was this feeling that all I had to do was reach through the Eye, and I could do anything I wanted, change any of it, all of it. That’s why I ran.”

“But you’re not terrified of it any longer. That wasn’t fear, not then.” Crowley holds up his hand. “Do you want to see it? The Cascade?”

The Doctor stares at him for a long moment. Then she nods.

Crowley snaps his fingers and half of the bookshop becomes the blackness of space, a void broken up by millions of stars surrounding the Medusa Cascade. “Still just an illusion,” Crowley says, “but it’s an accurate one.”

Donna stares at the Cascade, which she saw not long ago when Crowley took them onto that other plane of existence by accident. Before, the Medusa Cascade had been nothing but gasses and dust that made clouds of blue and red, shimmering golds, and wonderful hints of sea green.

It isn’t just a nebula any longer. It’s twinkling with the lights of hundreds of tiny stars.

“Big improvement,” Jack says. “It’s much better with stars than when it was crammed full of twenty-seven planets.”

Donna keeps her eyes on the Doctor, who is staring at the Cascade in awe. “It’s beautiful,” the Doctor whispers. “It’s bloody perfect.”

“Well, it is you,” Crowley says, hands in his pockets, still with that same semi-slouched posture. “That’s your name, Child of Infinity, and it’s one of the most beautiful things in creation. Not that I’m biased or anything.” He pulls his hands free long enough to cross his arms. “Child of Infinity, though. Are your people always that literal?”

“Usually. Sounds a bit better in Gallifreyan, though—which I’ll _not_ be repeating.” The Doctor turns away from the Cascade when Israfil starts swearing—or at least Donna assumes he’s swearing, since that is definitely not English. “What’s he saying?”

“Lots and lots of naughty words,” Crowley answers.

“Wait. Hold on.” Martha is holding up her hand, finger raised. “You said that _you_ were infinity. Time. Whichever,” she says to Crowley.

“Yep.”

“Then…Child of Infinity…” Martha trails off when Crowley raises both eyebrows.

“Yeah, that’d be…that’s me,” the Doctor says, offering them a weak wave.

“And never once ginger.” Rose gives the Doctor an innocent look when the Doctor glares at her. “What? Of course I knew! I’m the Bad Wolf, Doctor, and she’s been looking forward to this moment for a while now.”

“I need to sit down,” Aziraphale whispers, and immediately drops into the nearest chair. If Adam hadn’t kicked the chair over a bit, he would have missed it entirely. “You did—Crowley—the restrictions—”

“Were against humans and Celestials!” Crowley snaps before Aziraphale tries on fainting for size. “Not bloody human-_shaped_ aliens who’d already zipped their way up the evolutionary ladder!”

“How do you think I feel?” the Doctor asks, a blush staining her cheeks. “I’ve only known for a few hours!”

Mickey takes a seat next to Aziraphale. “Mate, I can’t decide if this is funny or disturbing.” Aziraphale makes a strangled sound that suggests he’s going with disturbing, and possibly a bit of a brainstorm for good measure.

“They said you didn’t remember Dardanus,” the Doctor says to Crowley, who is busy waving the illusion of the changed Medusa Cascade out of existence. “When did you…when did you remember?”

“Well, I was stuck in Hell for six months without much to do. I remembered it eventually. Then I forgot. Remembered it. Forgot again. Then I had to put everything back together again once I was home, and it stayed put this time.” Crowley eyes the Doctor. “How’d it go with the questions?”

“Oh! Drove almost all my teachers to drinking and early retirement,” the Doctor says proudly. “I really do have such a mouth, me. Never stopped asking questions then; haven’t really stopped asking questions now. It’s definitely gotten me into so much trouble.” Then the Doctor hesitates. “I do sort of want to say something. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time now.”

Crowley spreads his arms in invitation. “We’re stuck in a time loop. Have at it. I’ve got nowhere else to be.”

“Oh. Okay. All right. Here goes.” The Doctor clears her throat and stares up at Crowley, every single bit of her soul shining in her eyes. “Hi, Dad.”

* * * *

There is an eternity of about three seconds when the Doctor thinks she might have blundered, badly, by saying those two words. Then she is being hugged, wrapped in long arms and tightly held. Her head is pressed against his chest as if it’s something precious. There is only one heartbeat to hear beneath her ear, but it’s strong and fast, almost like the pulse of a fluttering bird.

Then the metaphor becomes a bit more accurate when incredibly soft wings encircle her. “Oh,” the Doctor whispers. It isn’t just feathers, but an extension of a psychic projection, love and comfort and _claiming_.

“You’re crying,” Crowley murmurs, the words sound and psychic both. “Why?”

“Because until today, I hadn’t been properly hugged like this in over two thousand years,” the Doctor mumbles against his shirt, feeling stupid tears of More Bloody Feelings roll down her face. “First by my mum, haven’t seen her in so long. No wings, of course. But then I get one from my dad, and it’s the same sort of proper hug. It’s a bit much, is all.”

“Do you want me to stop?”

The Doctor tightens her arms around him. “Don’t you dare.”

The next part is entirely psychic, not words at all. _I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I couldn’t…_

The heartbreak in Crowley’s thoughts, the self-loathing, nearly cracks her hearts in two. He’s sharing with her a long-suppressed thought, a desire that often veered into fear. Crowley, even when he was Zaherael, loved children with all his heart. Being a dad—or a mum—was one thing he’d always hoped for, one thing he was certain would be forever denied…and then one day, it wasn’t.

He could be a father, and the only good thing he could do for the child was to send them far, far away from him. Hell would have destroyed the Doctor, Crowley, the Doctor’s mum, and possibly wiped Dardanus off the face of the Earth for Crowley doing what he did. Not because of the human/Celestial breeding restriction, but because a demon had gone against their nature. A demon had dared to create.

A demon had given up his heart twice over to love, and he refused to take it back.

In return, the Doctor tells him her name. In Gallifreyan, it sounds like music rustling through her beloved silver trees. It’s the only gift she knows how to give back for what she’s just been given.

_Beautiful_, Crowley says again. _I’m not so fond of people saying my real name, either. I can make certain it’s…you know. Something no one really concerns themselves with._

“I’d rather not be stuck on Trenzalore for another millennium, so that’d be grand, yeah,” the Doctor agrees aloud. She wipes her face, whispers an apology for getting his t-shirt wet, and then lets out a bit of laughter when he shrugs and flicks the cloth with one fingertip, drying it instantly.

Then she looks up and her eyes widen. Crowley doesn’t move as the Doctor lifts her finger and captures one of the golden tears that are on his cheeks. It shimmers on her fingertip, like it has its own ethereal light.

“Uh—sorry.” Crowley coughs and quickly dries the rest of his face. “It’s a thing that happens sometimes.”

The Doctor watches the gold liquid drip down her finger and fall to the floor. “Because it’s about love. That’s when it happens.”

Crowley is suddenly yanked around and pulled into a hug by Israfil, who is grinning fit to crack his face if he’s not careful. “Do you have _any_ idea how relieved I am to find out that I’m not the one who fucked up?”

“Oi!” Crowley yelps. “It’s not like you still don’t have plenty of opportunities to find out!”

Israfil glances at the Doctor and bloody winks at her. “So he doesn’t panic,” Israfil mouths silently, and the Doctor nods her understanding. She could possibly use the not-panicking option herself, because now she has to go and face everyone else.

Rose just looks smug, which makes the Doctor scowl. “How long have _you _known?”

“A few minutes, and a few centuries,” Rose answers. “It’s a sort of point of view thing, really.”

The Doctor looks at everyone else. Poor Aziraphale is still resting his head on the table. Adam pats Aziraphale’s shoulder and then gives the Doctor a helpless sort of shrug. Adam doesn’t know what to do about the upset Celestial, but he has absolutely zero problems with one of his godfathers suddenly having a kid. In fact, the Doctor suspects he’s _happy_ about it.

“You know, you did tell us that your dad was human,” Martha says, arms crossed, looking vastly amused.

“Because that’s what she bloody well told me!” the Doctor retorts. “Until today, when I asked her about it, and she said Celestial was _close enough_. My mum is a bloody troublemaker, is what she is!”

“So you got it on two fronts, big deal.” Jack hugs her, a bit of the psychic strength he holds making it a bit warmer than usual. “At least you know you came by it honestly.”

The Doctor rolls her eyes. “I always knew that part!”

Israfil releases Crowley, but keeps his arm slung around Crowley’s shoulders, as if afraid he’s going to bolt. The Doctor feels sort of like doing the same thing, so she doesn’t blame him. “I think the results are definitely worth the mess,” Israfil teases Crowley.

Crowley glares at him, teeth bared. “Mess—no! There was absolutely _zero_ mess. Nada. None! Nyet! No!”

“Oh, so, you cheated,” Jack says, and Crowley rolls his eyes.

“Well, she wasn’t really all that specific!” The Doctor clamps her hand over her eyes. “OH MY GOD, THAT WAS SO EMBARRASSING!”

“I was gonna ask if all Gallifreyans participate in negotiating a conception that way, but I think that just gave me my answer,” Donna says, looking far too pleased with herself.

“Participate—no! I told you, that was the TARDIS’s idea! She gets bloody _ideas_ into her head and then I end up dealing with so much bloody awkward.” The Doctor presses her head against Jack’s willing shoulder and tries to will the blush away. It doesn’t seem to want to go, which is truly annoying. “My mum bloody well asked him to _convenience_ her!”

“Do you have any idea how difficult in-vitro fertilization even is? I did exactly what she asked!” Crowley protests, and then cocks his head. “By the way, still want to know: what the hell is _looming_?”

“You didn’t ask about that before!”

“Sorry, I was kind of distracted, what with her asking for an _infant_ and me witnessing the first embarrassed head-desk in Earth’s history.”

“Oh, God,” Aziraphale moans in distress, his face still pressed into the tabletop. “This is what you traded for Troy, Crowley?”

“Oi! I’m a person, not a this!” The Doctor pauses. “Usually, anyway. I mean, weird stuff does sort of happen sometimes.”

“Don’t mind him. He tends to…panic,” Crowley says.

“I’M NOT PANICKING!”

Crowley sighs. “Like that.”

“Looming is a Loom. It’s a breeding engine.” Donna not only still looks pleased with herself, she’s moved on to teasing. Unfair.

The Doctor frowns. “That’s really simplifying it too much.”

Donna lifts one shoulder. “Seemed a bit more polite than saying high-ranking Gallifreyans are such prudes about sex that they literally created a bio-genetic weaving system for baby-making so nobody would have to be biologically offended by the fact that bodies are weird.”

“Now, see, _that’s_ completely accurate!” The Doctor shudders. “Not for me, that. Too creepy. Had my kids the entirely normal, messy way, thank you very much.”

Four Celestial heads all perk up and look at her, including Aziraphale. “Sorry, you’re in a room with people who pick up on that sort of thing quite easily,” Israfil says in apology. “Grief, I mean.”

“Grief, yeah.” The Doctor scrubs at her long hair. “Long time ago, Time War, _really_ do not want to discuss it right now, thanks—” She pauses, tilting her head to listen. “Oh, no you don’t. Uh, look, someone is trying to muck about with my ship, and they have that demon-y feel about them. That empty corner of your bookshop over there where the furniture was moved out of the way, can I borrow it?”

Aziraphale blinks a few times and regards the corner in question. “Er…I suppose?”

“Don’t worry, pocket dimension, don’t need much space.” The Doctor digs into her pockets and retrieves her sonic, entering the recall frequency. She can feel it when whoever it is gets startled by the TARDIS beginning to dematerialize, which makes her smile.

“So, that whole zero-mess thing,” Mickey is saying to Crowley. “You really just snapped your fingers and made someone a mum.”

“Nggk. Look, it was most definitely a _one-time thing_—” Crowley breaks off. “That thing is gigantic.”

“Oh, I missed that sound,” Donna whispers. Jack grins in agreement, snatching Rose up long enough to give her another off-the-floor hug. Martha and Mickey grin at each other as the TARDIS appears in the little nook of Aziraphale’s bookshop.

“See? T.A.R.D.I.S. Time and Relative Dimension in Space.” The Doctor pockets her sonic and grins.

“Why’s it a small blue box?” Adam asks. “Because I don’t think small blue boxes when I think alien spaceships. I’m definitely thinking bigger.”

“Adam.” Crowley gives Adam a significant stare. “Look _again_.”

Adam shrugs and gives the TARDIS another glance. “Oh. Whoa. That…that’s…wow.”

“Why stick with one pocket dimension when you can have a lot of them?” The Doctor walks over to give her ship a quick pat. “Hello, sweetheart. Oh, someone was definitely trying to muck with you.” The Doctor raps on the right side door, which has the beginnings of a circle of corrupted Celestial symbols scratched into the blue paint. The symbols immediately fade away, the paint like new. “Better. Trying to bind my girl, how dare they? Someone definitely has too much time on her hands.”

“Samael has allies. Great. just what we all needed,” Israfil says, sounding very much like his brother for snideness. “As if things weren’t complicated enough.”

“I rather like it. Her,” Aziraphale corrects himself, giving the ship a very careful study. “I do miss the good, sturdy police call boxes, but if you’re trying to blend in, they’re not so common anymore.”

“Well, first off, the chameleon circuit’s been broken since before I owned her, so she locked onto the first thing she scanned on our first flight together, and she’s been a blue box ever since,” the Doctor explains. “Also, there’s a perception filter involved, but if she wants your attention, you can see her just fine. Usually means she likes you.” The Doctor unlocks the door and pushes them both open. “Care to take a look? Might not have a chance later, what with possibly being a bit dead and all.”

“Yep, that’s the sort of positive thing I wanna hear at ten o’clock at night,” Mickey says, shaking his head as he goes inside. “Blimey, you’ve gone and bloody redecorated!”

“Several times, actually.” The Doctor grins at Adam. “First alien spaceship?”

“This is _so_ wicked,” Adam whispers, and then darts inside like someone might be thinking of stopping them. Aziraphale hurries after him, though he is such a gentleman that he still pauses and gestures for Martha to precede him.

Donna grabs Jack’s hand and hesitates. “Is it really all that different?” she asks the Doctor.

The Doctor nods. “Yeah. Well, actually, this is the first time in a while she’s gone for something a bit more organic again, but it’s not like before. I think you’ll like it, though.”

Jack pauses before he steps through the doorway. “Does my key still work, Doc?”

“You’re psychic enough,” the Doctor responds, smiling. “Why don’t you ask her?”

“So…” Crowley tilts his head so he can peer through the open doorway, but doesn’t go in. “Not wanting to talk about things and distracting everyone with the nearest large shiny object is a thing, huh?”

“Yeah, it really is a thing, and it works _really_ well,” the Doctor says, trying not to bounce on her toes. “Not that I don’t want to talk about the other thing, but I’d rather rip my own toenails off than talk about the war, so.”

Israfil snorts. “Good to know it’s an inheritable trait.”

“Yeah, it…” the Doctor trails off. “Some things really, really are inheritable, aren’t they?”

Rose comes up and gives her a gentle nudge in the side. “Like what?”

“The snapping the fingers thing. The doors.” The Doctor makes a face. “I’m not explaining that very well, am I? I remembered in Dardanus that I’d programmed in a bit of a trick into the TARDIS, opening her doors by snappin’ my fingers. Except that was over two thousand years ago, and now I’m remembering it proper—I didn’t program that in. River told me I could do it when I first met her in the Library, giving me a bit of a challenge, like, so…I just…did it. Except it shouldn’t have worked. But it did.”

Crowley smirks at her. “Because you believed it would.”

The Doctor lifts both hands in the air. “Apparently? Going to be a bit before I’m willing to try to pull something out of nothing, if you don’t mind, though. That’s…well, not unbelievable, since I’ve seen it done and I’m pretty sure I understand all of it, but I’ve done a _lot_ today. I can wait until after midnight to try something new.”

“Think you could maybe try _one_ more new thing before midnight?” Israfil asks.

“Depends on what it is,” the Doctor says. “Why? What’s the new thing?”

Israfil reveals his wings and smiles. “I never thought I’d have a niece, or any other family aside from my brother. Think you could maybe spare a moment to hug an uncle?”

The Doctor thinks about it for about a millisecond before she willingly steps into her third proper hug of the day. Israfil is all gangly arms and legs, just like her dad, but he smells different, and not just a soap thing. Crowley smells like smoke and reptile and Time and something that might be a cologne. Israfil smells like reptile, yeah, but otherwise it’s water and wood and…well, a _lot_ of regeneration energy, which doesn’t really have a scent at all until it does.

Afterwards, Israfil holds out his arm for Rose, grinning, and allows Rose to escort him into the TARDIS. “It’s been a while for me, and…oh, wow,” Rose’s voice trails off into an amazed whisper. “She’s absolutely bloody gorgeous.”

The Doctor hesitates one more time before she realizes that Crowley is holding out his hand. “You are not alone.” Even without discussing any of the Time War, the understanding in his golden eyes cuts the Doctor right to her core. “You never will be again, if you don’t want to be.”

The Doctor swallows, reaches out, and takes Crowley’s hand. Maybe the Face of Boe hadn’t ever been talking about Professor Yana at all.

Maybe Boe had always been talking about this very moment.


	17. T.A.R.D.I.S.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Do you miss it?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much belated cheer-reader credit to @norcumi (and occasionally @morgynleri)!

The moment Jack steps aboard the TARDIS, he feels like he can breathe again. It’s not a physical thing; this is purely psychic. Almost nowhere on Earth feels like this, what with humanity in general thinking of psychics as complete fucking nonsense right now. They get over it, eventually, but in the meantime, Jack misses that closeness, that low-level psychic hum that made humans want to be closer—not romantically, though he’ll be the first to admit that was sometimes a great bonus. The twenty-first century is full of humans who are still keeping each other at arm’s length, even people who are married. Jack tries not to let it depress him, that lack, but Ianto is self-confessed to be as psychic as a bowl of dried-out noodles. Some days, that inability to connect further hurts worse than others. Doesn’t make Jack love Ianto any less, but it means he has to work harder at not fucking up, at not misunderstanding things that would otherwise be understood as easily as breathing.

He wouldn’t give up his life right now for anything, but God, Jack misses this part of his life, even though it was a long, long time ago now.

_“Hurry up, then!”_

_“Welcome to the TARDIS.”_

If Jack takes a moment to let the TARDIS’s semi-sentient consciousness sweep over his thoughts, to listen to her hum in recognition and welcome and apology, he knows the Doctor won’t blame him. He doesn’t think anyone will.

“Now this is a proper spaceship,” Adam pronounces, grinning down at the control console. “How big is this thing, really?”

“She got seven decks, sort of, since dimensional engineering doesn’t really keep to the same sort of concept,” the Doctor answers. “Unless she’s switched things around on me again, the entire fifth deck is devoted to hydroponics and gardens. Pretty to look at, helps support the TARDIS’s internal atmosphere. If you stumble across a room that looks like Roman ruins with vines everywhere, stumble right back out again, because otherwise she gets tetchy and the cloister bell won’t stop going off. I have no idea where the pool ended up, still haven’t found the wardrobe, and I have no idea where my study went. Also, still haven’t remembered to put the Zero Room back. Wait a tick.”

The Doctor goes to the console and glances around before she finds what she’s looking for. “There. Everyone’s rooms are out of the holding ring. Out of storage and back into physical existence. Granted, I have no idea where she just put them, so think of it as like an Easter egg hunt or something if you wanted to off and find them.”

Jack followed every motion the Doctor made, and he still has no idea what the Doctor just did to bring those rooms out of storage. The console is a lot different from what Jack remembers; there isn’t anything intuitive left of the old system. If Jack wanted to fly her, he’d have to learn how, all over again. The TARDIS’s controls also seem to be a lot more scavenged than last time.

The Doctor notices where Jack’s attention is lingering. “Oh, yeah. We’re working with what we can find. It’s not like I can exactly just pop off home for spare parts anymore. One of her last iterations incorporated a bloody typewriter, which was a bit direct, but definitely not to standard.”

Jack nods, watching Donna as she runs her hand along the small hourglass filled with white sand. “Least now there’s a countdown for when things will kick off,” Donna says, smiling. “Start the process and hope you’ve wrapped everything up before the sand runs out, yeah?”

“The TARDIS always did like to challenge us,” Jack replies. _You tease_.

The response is wordless delight. The TARDIS did miss him, even if the Doctor is very much her first love. The first version of the Doctor that Jack met took after the TARDIS; he was such a complete flirt.

_“Actually, Doctor, I think Jack might like to have this dance.”_

_“I’m absolutely certain he would, Rose. But who with?”_

Mickey and Martha wander around the rough crystal pillars that surround the console, each one reinforced at every angle to prevent structural damage. “This is definitely different from feeling like you’re twenty thousand leagues under the sea,” Mickey comments. “Now it’s gone a bit more journey to the center of the Earth.”

“I miss the rails, a bit,” Martha says, smiling up at the crystals and the reinforced hexagonal domes that surround the control console. “But this is nice. Very you. This you, I mean.”

“She’s so old.” Jack glances over to find Crowley staring up at the ceiling. His eyes have gone back to vertical pupils, probably trying to get a better look at whatever is lurking over their heads in the darkness. “It’s not very often I run into something that can compete with me for age. She’s still younger by quite a bit, but…not by much. Not at all.”

“This ship is older than I am.” Aziraphale has his hand resting over his chest. “Oh, that’s quite a sensation. She has so much history to her, doesn’t she?”

Israfil rests his hand on one of the crystal columns and looks surprised. “She grew these. It took a while, too.”

“Couple thousand years.” The Doctor tilts her head and smiles, her attention focused solely on the TARDIS. “She stranded herself on a planet called Desolation. I had to go off with the Fam and get her…which, really, didn’t go so well at first, but I ultimately got her back, so that was all right.”

“How long did it take to grow the not-coral, not-wood things that were here before?” Martha asks.

“Oh, she’d been at growing those for a long time already. All during the Time War.” The Doctor’s expression twitches, like she’s trying to twitch a bug away from her nose. Jack struggles not to grin; he’s seen Crowley do that _exact same thing._ Talk about genetics breeding true.

“After the war, the TARDIS didn’t really change much about herself. I think she knew it would have driven me a bit barmy. The roundels in the walls you saw, those were much bigger. The entire console room felt like it was a bit more…utilitarian. Bare. No; barren. The TARDIS swapped over to green at the center because it’s gentler on a Time Lord’s eyes, and because it didn’t remind me of anything awful. She patched herself up a bit on the outside as her energy reserves had the chance to recover, but otherwise…same ship.” The Doctor’s expression brightens. “Today was a bit of a strain on her, getting through a dimensional barrier as well as a time loop, but she’s not had to deal with anything horrible in a while. She’s already recovered. Good to fly. Not that we’re going anywhere, I mean. I just got told in no uncertain terms that she’s not moving again unless it involves getting rid of that wanker.”

“She has opinions about Samael, then?” Mickey asks.

The Doctor grins. “Mickey, the TARDIS has opinions about everything, up to and including biting people.”

Mickey glances up at the ceiling. “Love, please don’t bite me.”

Adam hops down to look at the lower platform the control console is resting on, where a lot of Gallifreyan writing is lit up along a black band. “What’s with all the circles an’ stuff?”

“That’s my people’s language,” the Doctor explains. “You can say a lot with the way circles overlap, over and over again. It can look like a right mess, but it was always about continuity. Big on that, my lot.”

Rose makes a full circuit of the console room and seems bemused. “There’s not a single place to sit, you know.”

_“Aw, look at these two. How come I never get any of that?”_

_“Buy me a drink first.”_

_“You’re such hard work!”_

_“But worth it.”_

“Eh, wasn’t really in the habit of sitting still. For a while. Besides, having a chair just sort of became a tripping hazard and she doesn’t take long to pilot, so why bother?” The Doctor shrugs. “There are plenty of other places to sit. Just not mid-flight.”

Israfil has moved enough that his face is being illuminated by blue light coming from one of the hexagons wrapping the control console, and he looks annoyed. “I’m being told off by a sentient spaceship for hiding my true form. This _is_ my true form, thank you!”

“Yes, it really is! This bloody well came before the others!” Crowley adds, scowling. “Why are you so picky—oh. Lots of shapeshifters being dodgy, trying to infiltrate your insides. Got it.”

The Doctor raises both eyebrows. “I’m pretty sure this is a first. I’ve had a lot of people step onto this ship over the years, and I don’t recall any of them immediately starting arguments with her.”

“Why not? She’s bloody loud,” Crowley says. “Hold on, then, you barmy box. I’m only doing this once, so you’d better pay attention.”

Jack watches as Crowley sort of gives himself a brief shake right before his form sort of slides gracefully into something very similar to what he looks like right now, with certain strategic differences. “There, you picky wench,” Crowley mutters in a voice that sounds like 1920s cigarettes and whiskey. In other words, Crowley is now very blatantly female, and just as drop-dead sexy as before.

This really is worse than dealing with two versions of the Tenth Doctor. Karma is such a bitch.

“Happy now?” Israfil asks. Her voice is smoother, lighter on the cigarettes and whiskey. “Because I haven’t done this in a very long time, and I feel top-heavy.”

Jack stops looking at Crowley to outright stare at Israfil. Top-heavy might be putting it lightly. “You two just…did not help anything about what I’m going to be thinking about for the next six years. At all.”

“I told you: please do not ever flirt with me,” Crowley mutters, though Israfil smirks at Jack. Those red ringlets were already hot, but seeing them clinging to transmutable curves is going to break Jack’s 51st century brain.

“You always manage to have better breasts,” Crowley notes, though Jack would argue that her chest is in perfect proportion to someone with that build.

Israfil shrugs. “That’s because you never wanted that sort of attention.”

“I still don’t!” Crowley retorts, and then shifts rapidly into an entirely different species. Jack barely has time to register _very large black serpent_ before said serpent is rearing up to reveal a scarlet belly. “Fffuck, that fffloor isss bloody cold!”’

“Ssshit, you’re right!” Jack almost expects another black serpent when he looks at Israfil, but Israfil’s other form is white, his scales rainbow-edged, his eyes just as blue as they are in human form. Israfil immediately shifts back to male-presenting human, accompanied by a full-body shiver.

Okay. Celestials who can shapeshift into snakes. Jack can handle this. He’s still seen weirder shit. Donna also doesn’t look surprised, and neither does Rose, but Mickey nearly flung himself off the control deck trying to back away from the serpent large enough to eat people.

“That is so bloody wicked,” Adam gushes. “How’d you do that? Can I do that? I wanna learn how to do that! That’d make for the best pranks from Hogback Wood with the Them! Why’d you never show me that before?”

Crowley shifts back to human and male, looking uncomfortable. “Sorry, I don’t really do that in front of…people. And no, Adam, you probably can’t, but I’d still ask your grandmother about it. Celestials as a rule aren’t really shapeshifters unless we’re feeling shirty about gender, and there are a _lot_ of us who can’t be arsed to bother.”

“At least the big noisy ship is calming down,” Israfil says.

“Oh, yeah, she’s fine now that she understands what’s going on. I should probably have warned, her, really, but I forgot about the shapeshifting bit. Also, I need to have a stern talk with the TARDIS about studying people’s DNA without their permission.” The Doctor has an odd look on her face. “Sooooo, first consciousness in the universe equals grandmother?”

Israfil and Crowley trade baffled looks. “Probably?” Israfil hedges. “I mean, it’s not exactly the same sort of bloodline a mortal family would use, is it?”

Crowley rubs at his forehead. “You know, let’s just worry about that later, because I have no fucking idea how to handle that at all.”

“I’m so, so glad that family awkwardness isn’t limited to being human,” Donna says dryly. “Because really, this is makin’ me feel so much better about my entire life.”

“You can…just…” Mickey rests his face in his hands. “You can both turn into gigantic bleeding snakes, and you didn’t think to mention it before?”

“Huh? Why?” Israfil asks, visibly distracted by the question. “It’s not like it was relevant to anything.”

“It’s not like our _eyes_ weren’t a gigantic fucking clue-by-four or anything,” Crowley drawls.

“Doctor. Doctor, no,” Rose says.

The Doctor’s head is tilted as she regards Crowley. “What? I was just trying to figure out the logistics of it!”

“No. Shapeshifting,” Rose orders sternly. “Not right now, at least. You can experiment with your own odd genetics after Samael is dead, but not before!”

“Spoilsport.” The Doctor has a hint of a sulk on her face before her expression clears. “Anyway, bedrooms are out and about, if you want to see them. Anti-grav room is gone, though, but that’s not so bad. If I want zero-g that badly, I can extend the atmospheric bubble and go outside.”

“Good riddance to that room, then,” Mickey says. “I got stuck in there for three hours once.”

The Doctor gives him a startled look. “You said it was fun!”

“Yeah, but not for three hours!”

“Bugger this, it’s sodding cold in here.” Crowley snaps his fingers. He’s immediately dressed again in his jacket, silver metal-tipped scarf, and what looks quite a bit like snakeskin boots…that Jack thinks are possibly not actually boots at all, but hey, everyone has quirks.

“She’ll start to warm a bit now that she’s had a kip, and then it won’t be so bad.” The Doctor glances around and then points to the left. “If you go outside the containment shield, there are four corridors—no, wait, five. Sometimes she mixes it up a bit.” She eyes Aziraphale. “My library’s off that way, but I don’t remember which deck.” Aziraphale’s entire being lights up with delight. “And no _borrowing_ my books, you! I behaved myself in your bookshop, so if I find you made off with my Qu Yuan, we’ll be having words. Otherwise, well…if you get lost, just put your hand on the wall and ask the TARDIS to lead you back to the control room. Just because you can’t hear her doesn’t mean she’s not listening. She’ll twist things ’round so you make it back here quick as you like.”

* * * *

It takes Jack about an hour to find his room, three levels down and hidden around the corner from the sickbay. The irony isn’t lost on him; the TARDIS is being cheeky and she knows it. His door is marked with his name in the dead language from Boeshane as well as Gallifreyan. The door opens at his touch, sliding into the wall so he can step inside.

It’s like walking into a second set of memories, but this time it’s the scent. Himself, definitely; Jack does tend to leave an impression. Underneath that, though, is leather and cloth “borrowed” from 1941, still smelling exactly the same from the waterproofing oil on the coat and hat. It’s Glen Miller and ghosts, dancing during the last hurrah of the London Blitz aboard a soon-to-be-doomed spacecraft, bananas and the abhorrent rubber scent of gas masks.

The months he spent on the TARDIS are still some of the best in his life. It was the first time that Jack felt free. He wasn’t on the run any longer. Didn’t have to con his way across the universe just to keep the meals (and the alcohol) coming. All he had to do was run, keep the Doctor and Rose alive, laugh, and love both of them with all his heart.

“Do you miss it?” Mickey asks from behind him.

Jack nods. “My life was a lot simpler back then. Also, I could still die, so there’s that.” He picks up a reading pad that lost its charge a long time ago, finds the charging cord, and pockets both. He thinks the rest of his scattered belongings should stay, just in case he ever ends up traveling in this lovely blue box again, but he remembers being in the middle of a book right before Japan. It’d be nice to finish reading it—whatever the hell it’d been about, anyway. Definitely time to start over on that one.

Decision made, Jack turns around. “What about you? Do you miss it?”

Mickey is leaning against the doorframe, glancing around Jack’s room. It makes Jack remember that Mickey would never have seen it before; they’d missed each other’s time on the TARDIS by quite a bit. “Nah. I don’t miss it. I used to hate this ship, really.” Mickey pulls a face, as if expecting the TARDIS to take offence at his confession. “I thought she’d taken everything good away from me, and I was never going to have it back. Course, me being a young idiot, I went with acting like a prat, thinking that’d make things all right again.

“It wasn’t this ship, though, and I was wrong. What I got out of it was another chance with my gran in another reality. Realized after a while that what happened to her in my reality wasn’t really my fault. I wasn’t the only person who ever visited her, after all. I didn’t help her when I should have, yeah, but neither did all those other wankers who stopped by. After my gran on that side of the wall died, a good life behind her, I came back here. I stepped off this ship one more time. I stood on Earth next to you and a gorgeous medical doctor working for UNIT, and realized I’d had my head up my arse for all the wrong reasons. I asked Martha out for drinks after you got your lift back to Cardiff.”

“Is that when she told you what her by-then ex-fiancé had pulled?”

“Yeah.” Mickey rolls his eyes. “Tom Milligan. Great chap as long as you pretend everything is fine and normal and aliens were never a thing. Still want to sock him one in the mouth for what he pulled.”

“Same,” Jack agrees. He’d liked Milligan, checked up on him after Martha admitted who she was dating, and he had seen all the signs that their relationship was solid, that everything was going exactly right. Martha decided to come clean before their wedding, telling Tom everything about where she’d been, what she’d seen, and how they’d met the first time.

To say that Tom Milligan took it badly was like saying that the surface of the Earth’s sun was only a little bit hot. In the old days, Milligan’s reaction was why Torchwood’s firm rule had been no _fraternizing_ with anyone outside of Torchwood. Jack had never been able to convince anyone in the hierarchy that isolation made them worse, not better, until suddenly everyone was dead and he was in charge.

“Do you need anything from your room?” Jack asks.

“Nope. I came on board this ship with the clothes on my back, and left with them still on me. Let’s go find my wife, Captain Cheesecake.”

Martha’s room is a deck below them, but Jack can’t remember what might be nearby. Her door opens inwards like it’s on hinges rather than a sliding panel. Martha’s entire space looks like she spent a lot of time trying to make it feel like she fit there. She’s sitting on a bed that looks like the sort of thing a young woman trying to be professional would go for, but has the added bonus of a stuffed bear that’s a bit too off on its features to be from modern Earth.

“Find anything fun, love?” Mickey asks.

Martha smiles and holds up a printed folio that isn’t bleached white, but a natural off-yellow tone. “One of Shakespeare’s folios, the one he signed and personalized for me. I’d forgotten all about it.”

“‘Love’s Labor’s Lost,’” Mickey reads. “That’s the play you got to see, right?”

Martha nods. “Shakespeare was such a prick about things at first, too. He got better. I even got a sonnet out of the deal, but that wasn’t nearly as grand as Queen Elizabeth wanting to execute the Doctor the moment she saw him.”

“What for?” Jack asks, grinning.

“No idea,” Martha replies, grinning back. “The Doctor hadn’t met her yet, he said. Since it was _that_ face the Queen knew, I imagine it’s happened by now, though.”

Mickey and Jack glance at each other. “We’re totally going to ask the Doctor about this, aren’t we?”

Jack tips an imaginary hat. “Yep. Martha, you in?”

Martha holds up her hand, allowing Mickey to pull her to her feet. “If you think I’d miss out on that, you’ve all lost your minds. Give me a moment to pack up a few things I’d like to keep, and then we can hunt her down.”

Donna is up on the second deck, somewhere near water; Jack can smell it, even if they can’t find it. Her door opens inward, too, but the style isn’t modern, but borderline medieval. Her name twines along it in Latin English script, Gallifreyan, and for some reason, actual Latin.

Donna’s standing in front of a full-length mirror, holding up a purple dress over her blouse and trousers. It’s made of Earth silk, Jack guesses, just based on the lack of shimmer to the cloth. “What do you lot think?” Donna asks them, smiling. “Still me?”

“Bet you’d look totally hot in it,” Jack says. Donna rolls her eyes in response, but Jack catches sight of her faint blush as she bends over to put the dress in a duffle bag. He counts that as a win.

“Where’d that come from?” Martha asks curiously. “It’s lovely.”

“Pompeii. Figured since the girl who was nice enough to give it to me is one of the lucky few who _didn’t_ die, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to hold onto it. Never know. Might find someone who doesn’t think I’m dull as a box of rocks before I age out of the dating game.”

Jack picks up a pillow from Donna’s bed and flings it at her. “Bad! Bad Donna Noble. No biscuit!”

Donna squawks at him, abandoning her careful folding job to smack him right across the face with a different pillow. “OI, YOU! Is that how you discipline your Torchwood lot?”

Jack smiles. “No, it’s what they do to me if I’m being a morose idiot. It’s the biscuit threat. Always works.”

Donna purses her lips and gives him a narrow-eyed glare. “Fine. I am not as dull as a box of rocks. Geodes are nice enough.”

“Donna!”

She scowls and turns away, glaring at the mirror instead. “Look, exactly two blokes have ever looked at me in the romantic sense and liked me for _me_. Since I’m pretty sure the first one never existed, excuse me for having low bloody standards.”

“Who was the first one? I’m assuming not your husband, because believe me, I know what that sort of bitterness sounds like,” Martha says. Jack once again shares a moment of comradery with Mickey based on the desire to punch Martha’s ex-fiancé in the face.

“Oh, I met Lee in the Library. The Lux Foundation Library, fifty-first century. Course, when the Doctor and I arrived, we had no idea the entire planet had been put into quarantine thanks to an unfortunate outbreak of Vashta Nerada eating people, but…” Donna sighs. “Didn’t matter. Once we fished out what was going on and fixed that mess, there was nobody named Lee McAvoy in their system.”

“Because…that was…a pseudonym.” Jack stares at her, his jaw hanging open. “Seriously, you _met_ him?”

Donna whirls back around. “He’s bloody _real_?” she shrieks.

Mickey winces and rubs at his ear while Jack nods. “I’m a fifty-first century guy, remember? The four thousand-odd survivors of the Library got stuck in digital quarantine for a century. It made them all famous, but Lee—Donna, his real name is Merrill E. McAvoy. He’s the second-oldest heir to the McAvoy Estate on Shallacatop. They’re not a royal family, but thanks to business, they might as well be. Fortunately, his parents outlived his stay in quarantine or things might’ve been awkward. Good head on his shoulders, bit of a speech impediment he was getting therapy for. Also, he’s completely hot; I can see why you’d like him.”

“Merrill E. McAvoy. Merrill E. Lee.” Donna abruptly sits down on her bed next to the open bag. “I promised I’d find him, and I just left him there. I left him.”

“Yeah, but you can fix that now, right?” Mickey gives Donna a pointed look. “You’re sitting in a time machine, Donna.”

Donna blinks a few times. “I’m sittin’ in a time machine. I’m sittin’ in a time machine, I know his name, and I know where he’s from.” She stands bolt-upright. “Get out of my way. I have to hunt down a Time Lord an’ gab in her ear about what we’re doing right after Samael is a smear.”

Martha grins. “We can probably add that to the list.”

“Why, what else is on the list?” Donna asks. “I’ll come back for my stuff later. What’s going on?”

Mickey hooks Donna’s arm with his elbow when she steps into the corridor. “The three of us are set on finding out why Queen Elizabeth I was so keen on executing the Doctor.”

Donna rubs her hands together. “Okay, yes, that can be the first thing we ask about. I’ll bet you anything it’s embarrassing. _Then_ I’m telling her she owes me a lift to the fifty-first century and back. Wait, would an heir to a bloody fortune even want to be bothering with me?”

Jack gives her another firm nudge in the shoulder. “Donna. I know about the quarantine protocols, and how they were used. The computer gave you what you wanted. No forced relationships or anything. If he was what you wanted in a boyfriend, it works the same in reverse.”

“We—we were married,” Donna says hesitantly.

“Even better!”

Jack lets the TARDIS guide them further into the ship, through several twists and turns that are basically unrecognizable from what they used to know. He does like the pattern on the walls, though, gears and cogs without traction lines that would make it too steampunk. After the steampunk Dalek, he’s not really in the mood for more of that.

They arrive just in time to find the Doctor pulling a sopping wet Israfil out of the pool…which is taking up the entire floor of that particular corridor. “That was a dirty trick!” Israfil is sputtering. “Step right around a corner, and then pool! Crowley would be laughing his arse off at me right now.”

“It’s not actually supposed to _be_ there!” The Doctor gives the pool a miffed look once Israfil is standing, dripping wet, on the corridor floor. “I had no idea where the TARDIS put the pool after the last reconfiguration. It’s got its own room! Why leave it in the corridor, you nutter girl?”

Israfil snaps his fingers, drying off instantly. “Maybe she thinks it’s an annoying and effective way of trying to drown your enemies, given what gravity is doing in that water.”

“Right. Still working things out, I guess.” The Doctor glares up at the ceiling. “Love, will you _please_ get the pool out of this corridor? Find a good spot for it—and not inside the library! Not like last time!” She cocks her head. “If there isn’t anything on the seventh level, then that’s fine! Just in a room, not a corridor!”

Jack watches as the pool ripples and vanishes. “Man, I miss that technology.”

“Architectural dimensional engineering. I’d love to rebuild my house with it,” Donna agrees. “I notice you’re fine with it, Israfil.”

Israfil shrugs. “I sort of live my entire life moving things about by thinking about it. Seeing it done with technology is fun.”

“Where’s your brother?” Martha asks.

“If Aziraphale is in the library, which, I will give you the entire contents of my wallet if he isn’t, then my brother found the plants. We might have to pry them both out,” Israfil says.

“I know that look.” The Doctor glances at Jack, Mickey, Martha, and then Donna. “Please tell me what that look is for. That look is trouble. What are you lot up to?”

Mickey grins. “We just wanted to know why Queen Elizabeth I was so into the idea of executing your scrawny arse, back when it still _was_ a scrawny arse.”

“Uh…yeah…” The Doctor winces. “I, uhm, kind of married her when I still had a face like my dad’s. And I didn’t stick around for the rest of it.”

Jack bursts out laughing while Martha rolls her eyes. “No bloody wonder she was furious with you! What the hell were you thinking?”

“Also, really, repeating that question: what the _hell_ were you thinking?” Donna asks. Jack can’t tell if she’s about to yell at the Doctor or start laughing at her.

“Uhm. Right.” The Doctor sighs. “You know when I said to Rose earlier that I’d done something really stupid, and I couldn’t take it back?”

“You said you’d fucked up,” Mickey says bluntly.

“Yeah, I did. I went and changed a fixed point in time,” the Doctor admits.

Jack has to let that sink in for a moment. “You did _what?_ You just—_what?_”

“I mucked about. I fucked up. I changed something I shouldn’t have because I couldn’t stand about watching people die any longer!” The Doctor takes a quick swipe at her face with her coat sleeve. “Fortunately for literally all our sakes, it didn’t change the outcome for the big stuff. But I felt it. I felt Time try to shatter, because I was becoming a complete ruddy basket case.”

“So, what, you ran off right afterwards and got married?” Martha asks in disbelief.

“No! Actually, I was aiming to spend a bit of time in the seventeenth century because I wanted to do…something I’ve completely forgotten about by now. Ended up in 1562, instead, and got invited to Court for reasons that I still don’t understand. Elizabeth never once acted like she was interested in me as anything other than as a curiosity who didn’t know how to dress properly. I was far more interested in becoming very, very sloshed. Then suddenly she was paying attention to me!”

“So, what, you got engaged while entirely pissed over a weekend visit to Elizabethan England?” Donna asks, smirking at her.

The Doctor shakes her head. “No, I mean I was very, very pissed for about, uh, a year.”

Donna stares at the Doctor for a moment and then lets out a snort of laughter. “How are _coping mechanisms_ bloody genetic?”

“I don’t know!” the Doctor exclaims, throwing her hands up into the air. “I mean—things were fine, I was behaving myself even while completely plastered, and then a bloody Zygon turns up on the radar! I should definitely have sobered up before I tried to figure out what or who the Zygon was impersonating, because I thought it was her, what with history saying the woman _never got married_ and suddenly she’s taking an interest in the bloody weirdo who won’t wear a ruff! Itchy things, those ruffs. So, I asked the historically unwed woman to marry me, because a Zygon would’ve said yes, and the real woman would’ve turned up her nose at the idea, right? Oh, God, I was so very, very _wrong_. Also, very, very embarrassed.”

“You could have backed out of it. I know you can avoid that sort of thing; I’ve seen it before,” Martha says. “More than twice, actually.”

“Right. Yes. Totally could have gone with that option, yeah. Except I still wasn’t sober, and then a future version of me nearly fell onto my head, and then a past version of me turned up, and things got really complicated really quickly, and well, nothing will sober you up faster than having to deal with two other versions of yourself.”

“I just…how?” Mickey asks. “How does the universe cope with more than one of you in the same place at the same time?”

“Usually with things exploding?” The Doctor pulls a sour face. “It was _way_ worse when it was five of us dealing with the same problem. Or…uh…thirteen of us.”

Mickey stares at the Doctor. “Never mind. I just stopped wanting to know.”

“So: married?” Jack prompts, because he has to know what the hell happened.

“Right. I’d already proposed to what I thought was a Zygon impersonating a queen, which, yeah, that didn’t work out so well,” the Doctor says, and rubs the back of her neck—one of her old mannerisms, definitely not a new one. “And I traded a marriage for her saving our arses in order to get back to a point in time just a few years ago in order to turn a Zygon invasion into a peace treaty.”

“Oh, so you’re the reason why Torchwood’s asylum registry is full of Zygons.” Jack sighs. “Okay, then. At least they’re easy to deal with.”

Donna just groans and buries her face in her hands. “Doctor!”

“What? Elizabeth is the one that didn’t specify I had to _stay_,” the Doctor protests. “She just asked for a marriage!”

Israfil makes a choked sound before he leans back against the wall and starts howling with laughter. “How—how!” he gasps out. “How are you exactly like your father?_ HOW?_”

The Doctor glares at him. “I must not be, or else I’d have been a ginger by now!”

“That part doesn’t matter!” Israfil slumps down to sit on the floor. “You are exactly like him, and he didn’t have a bloody thing to do with raising you! That is basically taking the idea of nature vs. nurture and telling nurture to go and fuck off already!”

“I’m not! I’m not—I am definitely not—I’m—” The Doctor blushes bright red. “Oh, God, I really am, aren’t I?”

“Yes, you are!” Israfil replies, still laughing.

Crowley abruptly appears in the corridor, which makes Martha twitch, Mickey jump, and causes Donna to let out a brief shriek. Then Donna slaps Crowley on the shoulder. “Mind your manners, sunshine, and warn a body before you do that!”

“What? It’s not like that’s new or anything.” Crowley glances around and then looks down at Israfil. “What the hell is the matter with you? Actually, with most of you, because the Doctor is bright red and the rest of you look like you haven’t decided on laughing or crying.”

“Just story time,” the Doctor manages to say. “Where were you?”

“Oh, just enjoying the fact that you’ve got an entire greenhouse dedicated to plants that are extinct on Earth,” Crowley replies, and then mutters, “and then making myself leave before I nicked any more seeds than I already have.”

Israfil is starting to wheeze from laughing too hard. Jack gives up and starts laughing again, too. The Doctor sighs. “That really, really didn’t help!”

“What?” Crowley raises an eyebrow. “Why? What was story time about?”

“The Doctor there was just explaining why Queen Elizabeth I wanted her to be very, very dead, back when she had a face like yours,” Mickey explains gleefully.

Crowley’s expression twitches. “Please tell me what you did, because it took me six months to convince that woman that no, I really wasn’t who she was accusing me of being, and please stop trying to kill me.”

“You were in London.” The Doctor squeezes her eyes shut. “Okay. Uh, I spent a year sodden and then traded Queen Elizabeth a marriage in exchange for an escape route to prevent an alien invasion that was going to happen a few years ago.”

Crowley stares at her. He opens his mouth, closes it; he raises his hand; lowers it. “Oh, FUCK!” he finally yells. “Now I owe Aziraphale fifty bloody quid!”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Martha holds up both hands, grinning. “You had a wager on with Aziraphale?”

Crowley grinds his teeth. “Aziraphale was insisting that she’s just like me, and I told him no she’s not, because she was raised by an entirely different culture created by wankers in the Kasterborous constellation—bloody hell, so much for the argument about nature vs. nurture!”

Jack slings his arms around Donna when she finally starts giggling. Israfil gives up, slumps down on the floor, and laughs into the deck plating. “Brother, I mean this with…complete, loving sincerity…but you deserve her.”

Crowley glares at him. “That was a compliment and an insult, wasn’t it?”

“Yes!”

“You’re a wanker, Brother.” Crowley glances at the Doctor. “Thanks, by the way. Aside from her trying to kill me, Elizabeth was furious for nearly forty years, and I got credit for all the shit she stirred up in the meantime.”

The Doctor gapes at him. “That isn’t the sort of thing you thank someone for!”

“Why not? Saved me a _lot_ of trouble trying to figure out how to follow orders from Below about fucking with English aristocracy. Queen Elizabeth did all the work for me because _you_ pissed her off. So yeah: thank you very much for the first vacation I’d had since the worst part of the Spanish Inquisition, which I don’t remember, because I spent the whole of it completely shitfaced after Below sent me a lovely note thanking me for causing it, which I didn’t, and Aziraphale still claims that being sodden nearly to the point of unconsciousness for several years doesn’t count as a vacation. Where’s Adam, by the way?” he adds, glancing around. “Because I’m really not all that comfortable with the idea of my godson wandering around in a bloody time machine by himself. ADAM!” he yells, and kicks Israfil in the shin on his way down the corridor to go look for him.

The Doctor stares in that direction after Crowley disappears around the corner. “That’s what it’s like when I do that, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Jack says in time with Donna, Martha, and Mickey. They couldn’t have done it better if they’d planned it.

They find Adam, Rose, and Crowley in the console room, sitting on the ledge that surrounds the console with its black band of illuminated Gallifreyan writing. Jack tried to learn it, but whatever pattern the TARDIS wrote there is well beyond his means of reading it. The TARDIS likes her secrets; Gallifreyan is one of the few languages she won’t translate through the telepathic circuit.

“I’ve been talking to the ship,” Adam is saying, “and it’s so wicked! She’s seen so much, like proper aliens and everything, not just human-shape types. Lots of defeating bad aliens, an’ a lot of helping people, and it’s amazin’!”

Crowley rolls his eyes. “You’re still not going out on an alien excursion _anywhere_ until you’re of legal age, and then you can fuck up your life however you want as long as you don’t destroy the planet while you’re at it.”

Adam huffs. “I wouldn’t! But things are fun right _now_. Why do I have to wait?”

“One: your parents would justifiably flip,” Crowley says. “Two: I said no bloody way. Three: it would upset Aziraphale.”

For whatever reason, it’s number three which really convinces Adam that Crowley means business. Adam deflates a bit and sighs. “Okay. Not until I’m legally allowed to go out an’ screw things up on my own—which I’m not gonna do, thanks.”

“I found your study,” Rose says to the Doctor, resting her chin on her hand while her knee props up her elbow. Jack knows _that_ look. He has run and hidden when faced with that particular expression.

“Oh, good!” The Doctor grins. New face and different gender, and still she doesn’t recognize that look. Jack almost feels bad for her. “Where is it?”

“On this level,” Rose says in a deliberately bland voice, “down on the far end off that way.” She smiles. “In my bloody bedroom.”

The Doctor pauses, purses her lips, and then shrugs. “You know, there is probably a perfectly logical and reasonable explanation for that, but I honestly can’t think of one right now, so I’m shelvin’ that for later. We still need to figure out what to do about Samael, which means I’m going to cheat and take us back until it’s just after five minutes from when we popped on board. That way we didn’t lose over an hour to sight-seeing.”

Jack watches the Doctor pilot the TARDIS, who doesn’t seem to mind him trailing along. Things are starting to slot into place, but he’d still need to see her do this a lot more often to understand the whole of it. “You know, Torchwood collects alien parts that fall through the Rift. You’re welcome to come by and dig through the mess, see if anything is useful.”

The Doctor glances up long enough to smile. “Thanks, Jack. Might do that. That offer definitely beats raiding the remains of a Stenza transit pod just to make a sonic Swiss army knife.”

Aziraphale pops into the console room as soon as the TARDIS has rematerialized about an hour or so into the past. He’s clinging to a book, white in the face. “That was one of the most disturbing sensations I have _ever_ experienced!”

Crowley snorts. “Zira, I can _freeze time._”

“Yes, but this was moving backwards in time! It’s an entirely different sensation!”

“Right, so—you cannot have my _Tamerlane_,” the Doctor says when she notices what Aziraphale is clutching.

“I don’t want your copy—okay, yes, I do, but! I just wanted permission to make my own copy based upon yours. I had one of the originals, but it was lost to unfortunate circumstances.” Aziraphale sighs in bibliophilic agony. “And it was a _signed _copy.”

“Sure, make a copy, just as long as you take your copy and leave mine alone.” The Doctor claps her hands together. “Has anyone come up with any genius way of getting rid of that Samael bloke yet? Because last time I tried it, I threw him into a black hole, and unfortunately that didn’t work out so well.”

“Black hole,” Crowley repeats. It’s the tone that gets Jack’s attention, makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up. The expression on his face, that look of perceiving things in the distance, just makes it worse. “What is it that Samael said he wanted?”

“The entire universe,” Israfil says. “Ruling over everything.”

“Why’s that matter? We know he wants to rule; he’s a wanker,” Mickey says.

“Wait, shut up a minute.” Crowley still has that same look in his eyes. “I had a thought, and since that’s a miraculous occurrence all by itself, shut up and let me enjoy it.”

“Samael was in front of a black hole,” the Doctor says slowly. “For over ten thousand years. It was the only thing he knew.”

“Yeah. And what’s he done since he came here?” Crowley asks.

“Energy. He’s been stealing energy from that black hole for who knows how long. He stole energy from you. Maybe he’s even stealing it from that place he’s hiding in right now,” Rose answers, frowning.

“Throwing him into a black hole isn’t the answer. Samael _is_ the black hole.” The Doctor bounces on her toes. “Yes! Yes, yes, yes, that’s why it’s us! That’s why revealing those two secrets brings him down!”

“I just got so lost, and I’m not ashamed to admit it,” Mickey says. “Someone translate that.”

“He wants to rule the universe. He wants all of time and space,” Crowley drawls, leaning back until he’s partially reclined, supported by his hands on the TARDIS’s deck. “All that was, all that is, and all that may ever be—even if I try to ignore that last bit as much as possible.”

“But I don’t.” The Doctor grins, all joyful mania. “Samael is the black hole, pulling in all the energy he can get, but he’s not really thinking about what he’s doing. He’s only mimicking what he’s seen that other black hole do. He’s never seen what happens when a black hole dies. Samael’s never seen a black hole eat itself to death.”

“I didn’t know black holes could die,” Mickey says. “How do you collapse a black hole that’s eating everything?”

Donna sighs at Mickey. “Oh, love, we are shoving your arse into a basic astrophysics course. If a black hole feeds until its singularity can’t support its event horizon anymore, it collapses. It ate too much; it’s too dense to survive that way.”

“But then it becomes a white hole, spitting out everything it ever ate,” the Doctor picks up. “After that, it goes right back to being a singularity again, a brand new black hole. The same thing would happen to Samael if he takes in too much energy. He’s not built for it. Samael would react like a white hole, trying to save himself, and regurgitate that energy, all of it!”

“We’d have to stop that part. We’d have to stop him from swallowing up anything he spits back out,” Jack says, crossing his arms. He thinks he knows where this is going now. He doesn’t like it, either. “Otherwise…”

“Yes, but we can shift the course of all that regurgitated energy. We can send it far away from here, somewhere Samael can’t get at it to eat it again. It’d just become a new singularity, a new black hole, forming somewhere else!” the Doctor explains, bouncing on her toes in excitement.

“And then he’d be vulnerable.” Israfil raises an eyebrow. “By fire. By water. It wouldn’t matter. He’d be too weak to survive it.”

“And the result would be one bubbling or flaming glob of ex-demon.” Aziraphale shudders. “Holy fire would be far more merciful. I’ve seen what happens in regards to holy water, and it isn’t kind.”

“Where is the extra energy coming from?” Martha asks. “I mean, I get that it’s you two, but what exactly will you do to him?”

“He wants the whole of creation so badly? We’ll give it to him.” Crowley smiles, his teeth just a bit sharper than usual. “We’ll shove the awareness of the entirety of the whole of time and space right down his throat.”

“It’d overload him. No one is meant to be aware of that, not without being trained for it, or having the genetic framework of understanding already built in,” the Doctor says. “Coming from one person, one source? That will kill you if you don’t knock off with it. Coming from two sources? He’ll drown in it. It’d be far too much.”

“No, no, that—” Rose scrubs at her hair and huffs in annoyance. “That’s the part that can go wrong. He’s already expecting the two of you to try and stop him. If you two do it alone, and he guesses at what we’re up to, and he’s prepared, then we don’t win.”

The Doctor bounces again, hands clasped together. “I know, and he utterly mucked it up by letting on that he knew it’d be us, too, because I’m going to call in a ringer. Maybe more than one.”

Donna sits up straighter. “Are we going to like these ringers?”

“Guarantee you’ll like at least one of them,” the Doctor responds. “Especially if one of them is my wife. Well, former wife, being that she’s dead in my personal timeline, but I know right when I could pop into her timeline without mucking things up, and oh, that’s going to be a bit weird.”

“Nearly got executed for marrying a queen,_ and_ you’re a bigamist. Great job, there,” Mickey says in amusement.

“What? Oh.” The Doctor rolls her eyes. “Oi. Bloody twenty-first century England. Uh—do me a favor, and don’t ask me how many times I’ve been married, and how many of those marriages I forgot to go back and annul after I sobered up. Also, I married Marilyn Monroe, so bite my arse, Ricky boy.”

“Don’t you start that again!” Mickey retorts. “Wait. Her?”

“Oh, my God, you did _not!_” Martha exclaims, grinning.

The Doctor smirks. “I totally did. On purpose, even!”

“Doc…” Jack shakes his head and laughs. “You’ve got a type, Doc.”

She frowns. “I do not.”

“Doctor, you have a thing for buxom brunettes, especially if they’ve gone blonde,” Rose says wryly. “And Doctor: your study is _in my bedroom_.”

The Doctor stares at nothing for a moment before she slaps herself in the face. “Yes, okay! I really do have a type! Bugger!”

Martha glances at Crowley. “So what’s your type, then?”

Crowley gives her a bland look. “Well-intentioned, anachronistic idiots who ask interesting questions.”

“Crowley!” Aziraphale sputters, blushing. Jack notes with a great deal of amusement that Aziraphale doesn’t actually deny it.

“How did we just go from talkin’ about how to deal with Samael to whatever it means by havin’ a type?” Adam asks in complete bafflement.

“Kid, you’re surrounded by people who are easily distracted by shiny objects and torrid gossip,” Donna answers, ruffling Adam’s hair. “Don’t worry. You get used to it.”


	18. Gather the Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Well, if you want something done properly the first time, you call in the best, don’t you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to @norcumi & @morgynleri for cheer-reading. Otherwise: sorry about the delay. Med change + sick = a bloody struggle. 
> 
> (And yes, we're closing in on the end-game. *g*)

Crowley steps out onto Greek Street, smelling asphalt and everything a pub’s closed doors tries to hide: people, good beer, cheap liquor, food, sweat, fabric, tears, and laughter. It took him years to convince Aziraphale that laughter really does have a scent, and he had to wait for human science to catch up to compile the evidence as to why. Worth it to win a centuries-old argument, but such a pain in the arse.

It’s the quietest he’s ever seen this area of London since the Blitz sent everyone scrambling for cover in the Underground. It feels otherworldly, and he’ll willingly admit, bloody fucking creepy.

“What’re we doing?” the Doctor asks, taking a few more steps until she’s standing next to him. “Aside from being weirded out by how empty Soho is right now.”

“I was just thinking the same thing.” Crowley takes a breath and then nudges the ground with his foot. A network of golden lines pop up, visible to his eyes, thick and endless. “Humans call them ley lines. Figure it’s as accurate a name as any.”

“All the stuff that holds matter and time together. I like calling it stuff, personally. Makes it sound less intimidating to everyone else,” she says. “You’re looking for when and where, aren’t you?”

“Can’t paint a protective circle onto the ground without knowing where.” Crowley sniffs once. “Not in the mood to bleed for no reason. When, though…” He glances at her. “When you say you can see what will be, is that like…you can see it like it’s already happened, or foresight?”

“Depends on the day, really,” the Doctor admits, looking thoughtful. “Everything is in such a flux right now. I could tell you about Sunday, if we get there, but right now? Not so much, not locally. You?”

“I try not to look, but I think Mum was giving me a hint last autumn. Before she gave me back the ability to remember all of who I used to be, she said, ‘There is one last bit of healing to be done before you truly understand all that was, all that is, and perhaps even a smidge of what may be.’”

The Doctor gives him a quick, concerned look. “Healing?”

“I told you I couldn’t remember my name,” Crowley says. “I couldn’t remember much of what came before Falling was a literal thing that happened. Just flashes, here and there. Most of it made no sense, images without any context. Everything after? If I didn’t lose things from having to deal with Below, then I still have it rattling around in my head somewhere. Point is, I think that smidge she mentioned is for right now.”

The Doctor nods. “Where and when, then.”

Crowley tilts his head. “When is easy. We’ve got six hours exactly, right from this moment.” Five in the morning is not Crowley’s favorite time to be awake, much less fighting anyone and trying to make sure his home isn’t eaten by an arsehole. “Where…” He directs his focus down, into the earth, following vibrations he can already feel beneath his feet. Something massive is tunneling its way up…and it’s not the only massive bastard doing so. “Oh, good. Samael is bringing friends. Way to complicate everything, you miserable bollocksing prick.” He has no idea how they overrode the problem of Hell being out of synch with Earth-time, but it doesn’t really matter right now. The annoying thing is that they did it.

Crowley points at the intersection. “Right here for Samael, almost directly between the theatre and that café, which…yeah, that’s not going to be so great for either building. The other lot will be breaking through the ground further up Greek Street. The RTF will be thrilled by the mess.”

“Six hours, though. Plenty of time,” the Doctor comments.She sounds far too cheerful about the entire mess.

“Probably.” Crowley glances at her, still wondering how he could have looked at her in Dardanus and been so utterly blind. It wasn’t the image of the Doctor wearing his face in a recording that convinced him; it was looking up into her face earlier this evening after escaping Hell by a summoning portal, feeling her hand on his shoulder, and _seeing_.

“You know this isn’t going to be easy.”

“Pfft.” The Doctor grins. “I handle moderate problems for breakfast, difficulties for lunch, and eat impossibilities for dinner. I’ve done harder things than this.”

Crowley tries not to bare his teeth in displeasure and fails miserably. “That’s really grand, because I haven’t. Seriously, though, it feels like you save the world once and then you’re stuck with the job!”

“Yeah, it does sort of happen that way.” The Doctor’s grin fades. “I kind of need to ask a favor.”

“I’m so very glad I’m not a demon anymore,” Crowley mutters. “What is it?”

“River didn’t know my face. Your face. Our face. Me wearing my dad’s face?” The Doctor scrunches up her nose. “However that works. But that time when I meet her looking like you, it’s the _only_ time she meets me with that face. River’s a grand actress, but I’m certain she had no idea who I was until I told her.”

“But if she agrees to come here, she might alter something that shouldn’t be altered.” Crowley nods. “Don’t worry. She won’t remember my face. Not Israfil’s, either.”

“How? I mean, messing about with people’s heads is…okay, I’ve done it, but I don’t _like_ it."

“You said your ship has a perception filter that keeps people from noticing it? Same concept,” Crowley replies. “If you’re fine with your ship doing it, doesn’t seem like it’s that bad to me. How psychic is she?”

The Doctor holds out her hand and tilts it back and forth. “Psychic enough to be a pain in the arse. More than Jack is, definitely.”

“Great.” Crowley holds out his hand. “Hold onto me and let me key you into this, because by the time I’m done, everyone else will have to identify myself and Israfil by our clothes instead of our faces. I’ll have to do the same for whoever you’ve invited along to be the third wheel. And yes, Israfil is warning the others while we still have the chance.”

The Doctor waits until she can blink up at him and still see his face. “All right, then.” She tilts her head back at the bookshop. “Let’s get a move on, shall we?”

“Yeah.” Crowley would really rather be doing almost anything else, but no help for it. He hopes he can get through yet more bloody dramatics without dying. “Call in your ringers. We should get everyone here first. I hate repeating myself.”

“On it.” The Doctor pulls out her mobile and is keying in a number as they step back inside the shop. The others are leaning against shelves, sitting on chairs (or tables, to Aziraphale’s irritation), and basically waiting to find out how they’re all going to manage to not die. Even Wilf woke himself up and insisted on coming downstairs. The old man might not be able to help directly, but he wants to know what the hell is going on.

They all want to know what’s next. They want a plan.

No pressure or anything. Driving his car through hellfire was easier than this.

“I routed the mobile through the TARDIS. Makes things easier—oh, hello! Don’t hang up just because a strange woman is calling your phone,” the Doctor says at speed. Whoever is on the other end of that call doesn’t want to be overheard; Crowley can’t pick up on a voice at all. “First off, you need to check the number I’m calling you from.”

“Remind me never to call myself,” Martha says to Mickey. “Even if I get my phone upgraded so it’s possible again.”

“Never give yourself a ring,” Mickey responds at once, earning himself a glare.

The Doctor waits, grinning. Then the grin turns into annoyance. “What’d you mean, how did I get this number? Are you barking? Wait, I know you’re barking, forget that part. Look, that’s not the important bit right now. What you need to think on, really quick like, is if you’d like to help me kick the pants out of an oversized bastard who tried to eat Rose Tyler.”

The Doctor smiles again. “Thought you might. Listen, I’m giving you a date, a string of coordinates, and another extra kick, because you’re going to be dealing with a time loop—which, by the way, is much easier to fly through than dealing with a time loop combined with a dimensional barrier. Gravity might still give you a bit of trouble on your way through, though, so make certain you’re hanging onto something. Still with me? Excellent! Here’s what you should be writing down just about now.”

Crowley watches her, the rest of the conversation lost in the face of realizing the overwhelmingly obvious. “Oh, fuck, I’m an idiot.”

“Why’s that?” Donna asks. “I mean, more than usual.”

Crowley scowls at her, but she’s unrepentant. Dammit, he really is starting to like her. “It’s the _bloody mobiles_. A mobile phone call is pure signal, it’s a direct connection. It doesn’t _matter_ that Above and Below are out of synch with Earth. There’s no longer a dimensional barrier in the way. All we have to do is ring them up…”

“And they can teleport right here using the signal!” Donna finishes, a huge grin on her face. “That’s bloody grand!”

“Backup.” Jack lets out a whistle. “Can’t say I’m going to turn that down. I’d rather keep anyone else who’s human and vulnerable out of it if we can.”

“Same.” Crowley pulls out his mobile and glances at Israfil. “Do you think they’d bother to turn up if you asked?”

“I think they’d kill me if I _didn’t_ ask them,” Israfil retorts, already dialing the number. “Hi, Ba‘al—yes, the barrier’s down, but…”

Crowley leaves Israfil to handle that potential landmine on his own. Ba‘al is really the only person he’d trust from Below not to take this as an opportunity to screw them over, stitch them out, or think more on tempting souls than on making sure nobody dies, but one powerful demon can do a lot of damage. Crowley was proof enough of that before he switched teams. Again.

The mobile picks up after a single ring. “Update me,” Michael says without so much as greeting him.

“Hi, Michael,” Crowley drawls. “How’s things?”

“Things are just _fine_,” Michael growls. “Hello, little brother. How are you?”

“Worried about Samael destroying the entire planet. We overlooked something stupid. How long’s it been since you traveled using a signal?”

Michael goes quiet. “Crowley. I have _never_ done that.”

“Oh, come on. It’s easy!” Crowley pinches the bridge of his nose. “Even Aziraphale can manage it, and he’s still using a sodding rotary phone! It’s like teleporting, except you’re hitching a ride instead of deciding on the arrival spot yourself.”

“I hope those two don’t decide to change clothes on us, because I _really_ can’t tell them apart right now,” Crowley hears Wilf say, and tries not to smile. No chance of that. Only angels (or demons) will be able to get a clear look at their faces right now, plus one half-blood Time Lord.

“All right.” Michael sighs. “Say that I do this. What do you need?”

“Help,” Crowley says bluntly. “Samael is going to be here in less than six hours, and he’s not coming alone. He’s picked up allies from somewhere.” He hesitates, but Michael is going to find out, regardless. “One of them is Typhaon.”

“Sandalphon,” Michael gasps.

“No, not right now, he isn’t!” Crowley retorts. “He really went with the Greek mythology bit. How many people can you convince to help stomp him back Downstairs who are not Gabriel?”

“Not sure. Things are in a bit of an uproar, and we can’t leave Heaven undefended if there are rogue demons roaming about.” Michael hums under his breath. “Gabriel is definitely not a good choice, not with Samael as a player. I don’t want to see him Fall for foolish reasons.”

“Yeah.” Crowley stares across the bookshop to meet Aziraphale’s gaze, but no specific names are coming to mind except one. “How’s our happy little psychopath doing?”

“Zaazenach is whole again, and accepts her old name, though she is still most decidedly Fallen. If it weren’t for her continued feelings for Samael, I’d almost be willing to bring her along. For now, though, she needs to stay put until Hell agrees to take her back.” Crowley listens as Michael’s shoes click along on what sounds like ceramic tile. “I can’t make this decision without some sort of guideline, Crowley. Give me a number.”

“Three,” is the answer that pops out of Crowley’s mouth, and then he groans. “Oh, that’s all? That’s bloody terrible.”

“I do rather hate it when that happens,” Michael says in dry agreement. “When should we arrive?”

Crowley glances over at the Doctor, who is about to start a second call. “When?” he mouths at her.

“I’m giving my lot five minutes,” she whispers back, and then puts the mobile to her ear.

Crowley calculates in additional time for human dramatics being cut short by crisis. “You’ve got fifteen minutes, Michael. I don’t want to get any closer to Everything Dying Time than that.” Crowley hangs up and returns his mobile to his pocket just in time to overhear most of the Doctor’s second conversation.

“Where even are we on your personal timeline?” she’s asking, one hand shoved into her hair as she paces back and forth. “Wait, just after the Singing Towers? Oh, you’re kidding! What are you up to right now?” She listens to a response that Crowley unashamedly eavesdrops on. Not his fault everyone forgets that snakes have excellent hearing. This woman sounds very sardonic, intelligent, and possibly a bit manic. No wonder they get on.

“Well, my next assignment is playing guide for the Lux family. The current head wants to try to figure out what went wrong with the Library a century ago,” the woman is saying. “Right now, though, I’m robbing someone blind.”

“River!”

“What?” River is definitely smiling, and she’s being smug. “Some of us have actual bills to pay, sweetie.”

“Oh—just—don’t tell me. Okay? Look. I need your help, and even though I’m way ahead of you now—”

“Way ahead of me, _and_ the wrong gender.” River still sounds amused. “You know I went straight after my last wife, my love.”

“I didn’t go and decide on being a woman, it just happened!” the Doctor retorts, and then takes a calming breath. “Look, do you want to help stop an oversized arrogant twit of a demonic entity from destroying the Earth and taking over the universe or not?”

“That sounds like fun. What do you need?” River asks.

“Intelligence, mechanical aptitude, and an awareness of Time. Sarcasm is not necessary but I’ll consider it a tension-relieving bonus.”

“Flatterer.” River pauses. “All right. Tell me when and where. The vortex manipulator has been giving me shit of late, so I’m on the hunt for a replacement, but I think I can get a few more trips out of it before it gives up the ghost.”

“Can it handle a time loop?”

River laughs. “You always invite me to come along to see the nicest problems.”

“Fair is fair, what with you being the one to invite me to the next one.” The Doctor rattles off numbers so fast that Crowley doesn’t even bother to track them. “See you soon.”

The Doctor hangs up, puts her mobile away, and then scruffs up her hair with both hands. “Oh, that was awkward. So very, very awkward.”

“Professor River Song, huh?” Jack looks impressed. “Good catch, Doc.”

“Stop helping!” the Doctor responds, and then paces her way through the bookshop. “So, so, so awkward, but we need her. I want a biscuit. I like biscuits. Bugger!”

“When is this for her?” Donna asks. There is an expression on her face, like she already suspects the answer, and it’s not a nice one.

The Doctor stops pacing. “Awkward is really not the right word. More like _this is terrible_, but that’s too many words. It’s right before the Library, Donna.”

“Oh. Shit.” Jack’s expression drops into sympathetic horror. “She was part of the expedition team in 5016, wasn’t she?”

The Doctor nods. “That’s next for her, and I get to spend the next little bit pretending I’ve got no idea. I mean, I can, it’s not like I didn’t do that for our entire bloody marriage…it’s just…it’s a lot closer this time.”

“Did you like it? Being married to her, I mean,” Rose clarifies, smiling. “I know you’re poly and I don’t mind. I just want to know if I’m going to want to like this woman or not.”

“Poly? Oh! Polyamorous,” the Doctor realizes. “I suppose that works. Yeah. I did like it, it’s just we couldn’t really stay together all that often. Not because we didn’t love each other, but because it was terrible enabling and I did want the universe to still be standing afterwards.”

“Why?” Martha asks. “I mean, aside from not wanting the universe to take a beating from it.”

The Doctor tilts her head. “We’re both mad people with poor impulse control and bad tempers, except River is so much worse than I am.”

Aziraphale already has a protective hand on the nearest book. “What does this woman, er, do? Her profession, I mean.”

The Doctor purses her lips. “Uh…doctor of archaeology, professional meddler, management consultant, private investigator, assassin, thief, con artist, and oh, yes, human proto-Time Lord.”

Aziraphale’s eyes widen. “Thief. Oh, absolutely not.” He snaps his fingers, and half the books from his shelves disappear. “Crowley, your flat just became rather crowded, I’m afraid.”

Crowley shrugs; he’s a bit more focused on the human Time Lord bit. “You’ve got a line on a human who can understand Time without their head exploding? Bloody _how_?”

In the meantime, Donna, former human/Time Lord meta-crisis, has become a ginger thundercloud. “SHE IS _WHAT_?”

“Uh, yeah, that was so not my fault except it was, but it’s not like I told her parents to have sex!” the Doctor protests. “It was their wedding night, what was I going to do, tell them not to? River was conceived outside of Time, Donna. That’s how it’s possible—and she isn’t—it’s not like the meta-crisis. She understands Time, but she doesn’t have a full awareness of it, so no exploding head side effects. She just sort of picked up a few things, like being able to regenerate until she couldn’t anymore. But it’s a trade-off, Donna. She’s _completely_ mental, so I wouldn’t exactly go about convincing other humans to try it for a lark.”

Donna is still fuming. “She seemed all right to me when we met her.”

“River was three hundred seventy years old at that point! She’d had a lot of time to calm down by then.” The Doctor perks up and beams at them. “Guess what I hear?”

Crowley can hear it then, too—the same sort of odd wind-grinding variable pitch that announced the arrival of her ship. Then he can see the faint outlines of color as the ship begins to land right next to the first one. The same exact ship, though this one looks a bit rough. He can feel their sentience, which is already mingling and sharing.

They’re bloody gossiping with each other. The same consciousness from two different points in time is gossiping with itself.

_I,_ Crowley decides, _am far too sober for this._

“You called _yourself?_” Mickey asks, letting out a short burst of disbelieving laughter. “Really?”

“Well, if you want something done properly the first time, you call in the best, don’t you?” the Doctor answers Mickey, beaming and smug.

Crowley sighs, gets out his wallet, pulls out two twenty-pound notes and one ten-pound note, and shoves all three into Aziraphale’s hand. “Shut up.”

Aziraphale merely smiles and tucks the money into his trouser pocket. “We’re still going to be discussing this later, dear.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Crowley listens to the ship settle, the sound like an exceptionally bass single drumbeat. “I get to sleep first, though. Then you can yell at me all you want.”

“She looks a bit rough compared to yours,” Israfil comments. There are more dings on the newest ship, the paint older and fading. There is an emblem on the first ship’s right door that’s missing from this one, and the windows don’t have the other’s blackened block pattern.

“She was only about a couple of years out of the Time War. She was still repairing the damage,” the Doctor says. “Trust me, she looked worse before."

Both doors of the newest ship are abruptly yanked inward as a man steps out. “All right, where are my troublemakers?”

“Japan,” Aziraphale murmurs, referencing the photocopy of the scroll. The short brown hair and blue eyes certainly fit, and so do the clothes. Crowley takes in the black leather jacket, shirt, trousers, and boots, and decides that at least this version of his daughter knows how not to be a fashion disaster. The only spot of color is his wine red t-shirt…which is actually sort of unnerving. Again. That’s one of Crowley’s favorite alternatives to grey beneath all the black.

“Oh. My. God.” Rose and Brothel Boy are the only two of the humans gazing on the new arrival with recognition on their faces, and both of them look like they’re ready to burst into tears. He must’ve made a good impression on them. Or a sad one. Either way, Rose is the only one managing real words. Jack just looks like someone punched him. “Doctor—you—”

“And there they are.” The Doctor spreads his arms and grins. “Oi, come on, then!”

That’s all it takes to break Rose and Jack. They rush the Doctor, who gathers them both up in a hug at the same time. The psychic impression is almost deafening, it sings so loudly.

“Oh.” Aziraphale takes a deep breath. “Oh, that’s lovely.”

Crowley tries to nod, but he’s also being blinded by the play of Time around those three, and how it loops over to his daughter, and then back to his much younger son. He’d call that play of Time a feedback loop, except it’s more like a consistent…interaction?

Also, they’re both using northern British accents, but it’s not the same one. Sheffield, Crowley can understand—falling through a train would make an impression—but he’s guessing the younger Doctor based his on Lancashire. Fuck’s sake, _why_?

“Fuck, my head hurts. You just went back to being Not-Jane again, because I cannot deal with this shit,” Crowley says to the Doctor. At least when Crowley swaps gender, he’s only dealing with _himself_.

The Doctor, Not-Jane, doesn’t seem to mind. “Nah, it’s fine. It’s nostalgia! Wait, can you be nostalgic for something that just happened a few hours ago?”

Crowley thinks about meeting an angel above Eden’s eastern gate, and how much he’d wanted their first time together back again the moment it was over with. “Yeah. Definitely.”

“Great, then! Definitely nostalgia.”

“When is this for you?” Rose is asking.

“Uh—Mother’s Day. You and Jack decided to stay in London with Jackie and be all domestic, and I decided I would rather hide on the other side of the universe. That plan’s not going so well at the moment.” The younger Doctor holds Rose and Jack at arm’s length as his smile melts into a horrified stare. “Okay, now that part’s over and done with: what the _hell_ happened to the pair of you? You practically reek of Time, and you’re a fixed point—just. HOW?”

Jack shakes his head. “Oh, that is such a long story, Doc.”

“And it weren’t your fault, so don’t even go there,” Rose adds. “Besides, we sort of don’t really have time right now.” She smiles and gives the younger Doctor’s cheek a brief, affectionate pat. “It’s good to see this particular face of yours again, though.”

“That also really isn’t helping with anything!” Then the Doctor spies Mickey. “Ricky boy!”

“Oi, knock off with that right bleedin' now!” Mickey yells in immediate frustration. “I’m forty-four years old; don’t you even bloody start!” Mickey points at Not-Jane. “She’s bad enough as it is!”

“All right, keep your pants on, then. Good to see you, even if you’re tetchy.” The Doctor glances over at Not-Jane and then raises both eyebrows. “I’m assuming you’re my phone call, but how on _earth_ did you manage to tone down the bloody psychic Time Lord impression so much?”

“Eh, you’ll learn it.” There’s a brief flare as Not-Jane restores the Time Lord psychic headdress and robes impression, turning it into a brief strobe-light before pocketing it again. “Hello, by the way,” Not-Jane says, waving one hand and smiling in such a familiar way that Crowley is nearly tempted to fork over another fifty pounds just so Aziraphale will _not mention it_.

“Yeah, hello.” The Doctor looks Not-Jane up and down before smiling. “Nice to know that when I finally decide to go in that direction, I pull it off well enough.”

“Oi—wait, that was a compliment. Uh, I haven’t actually really paid attention to that part of things yet,” Not-Jane says. “It’s only been about a year. So, thank you, I think, and also never say that again because that was really odd.”

The Doctor’s lip curls back in agreement. “Yeah, it kinda was. So, where’s the problem that you and a roomful of people soaked in artron energy—and I’m not even going to ask about that—can’t handle?”

Not-Jane’s eyes light up. “Well, we actually have almost zero time to explain any of it, and someone else is going to be here at any moment who really is going to throw a spanner into the works, so!” Not-Jane holds up her hands and wiggles her fingers. “Gotta do it the quick way.”

“Oh, God.” The Doctor sighs. “I really do hate talking to myself like that. It’s always awkward enough when it’s just words!”

“Yeah, trust me though; there isn’t even a way to summarize this quickly. I’m…” Not-Jane flails around with her hands for a moment. “Older than you are right now. By a lot. That isn’t actually the problem. It’s more like this entire situation is so very, very, _very_ complicated.”

“How complicated is complicated?” the Doctor asks, glancing back at Jack and Rose.

Jack holds his hands together and then spreads his arms as wide as they can go. “Except multiply that by a lot,” Rose explains. “She’s right; it’ll be faster. And we’re on a timer.”

“I do my best work under a time limit. Alright, then.” The Doctor faces Not-Jane and closes his eyes. “Ready when you are.”

Not-Jane hesitates. “He’s right; I really do hate talking to myself this way.” Then she places both of her hands alongside her younger counterpart’s temples and closes her eyes.

The exchange lasts for about three seconds before the younger Doctor jerks back, wide-eyed. “You’re kidding me!”

“Nope!” Not-Jane’s reassuring smile is probably a wasted effort. “Not a bit. Not any of it.”

“Good. Right, then. I need to sit down,” the Doctor says, and then promptly sits down on the floor of the book shop. “Give me a moment. I have to bloody well sort all of that. You could’ve warned me!”

“How?” Not-Jane asks plaintively.

“Point,” the Doctor acknowledges, grimacing. “Well, haven’t we been busy.”

Martha glances at the two TARDIS ships again before looking to Not-Jane. “What did you tell him? Er…yourself, I mean. Oh, God, I actually didn’t think this could get weirder.”

“Are you kidding me? This is _hilarious_,” Donna insists, grinning.

“He knows who all of you are now, even if it was just a brief bit of naming and why I know you, not the details,” Not-Jane replies, ticking off points on each finger as she speaks. “Brief summary of why Rose and Jack are different so it wouldn’t drive him mental. Too much of a distraction, that. Celestials being real instead of being a myth. Samael on his way with friends to kill us all. How we have allies incoming, and one of them is a touchy subject.” She realizes she’s run out of fingers and shrugs. “Oh, and the family bit an’ how that happened. Can’t not mention that.”

The Doctor scrubs his hands through his short brown hair. “Our mum plays dirty pool.”

“Oh, she’s always done that!” Not-Jane counters. “That’s not new!”

“Celestials are a bloody _myth_!”

Not-Jane rolls her eyes at him. “_We_ are a bloody myth! The Sisterhood of Karn is a myth, and look at how many times we’ve had to deal with them!”

“Yes, but…” The Doctor turns and stares at Crowley. “You’re my dad.”

Crowley shrugs. “Sorry.”

“Crowley!” Aziraphale hisses. “That isn’t the proper response for this sort of thing!”

“Oh, fine.” Crowley takes off his glasses for a moment, briefly dropping the miracled perception filter that disguises his features. “Hello, nice to meet you, sorry for the inconvenience.”

Aziraphale glares at him. “That, dear, was not an improvement.”

Crowley puts everything back and scowls. “Zira, I haven’t slept in over six months. I am this close to losing my shit, bolting, and hiding under a rock on the moon for the next millennium. That’s the most civil thing anyone is going to get from me at this point unless I become significantly less sober!”

The Doctor gives Crowley a long stare before he raises his arm. Jack understands at once and pulls the man to his feet. The Doctor straightens his coat. “Don’t, it’s…I got the highlights reel, so don’t twist yourself into knots over it any more than you’ve managed already. It’s fine. No, it’s really bloody odd, but—”

Crowley winces when a brief burst of white light tries to blind him, even through his fucking sunglasses. When his eyes clear, there is a woman standing there in an olive singlet, cargo pants, boots, and holding what looks like a legitimate prop of a ray gun from a 1950s science-fiction film. She’s very much a buxom brunette, which fits in perfectly with Rose’s accusation of the Doctor having a type.

She also brings with her the feeling of impending doom.

“DON’T MOVE!” Crowley isn’t aware he’s one of three voices shouting the instruction until he realizes his hand is raised, palm outward. The two versions of his kid are doing the exact same thing.

Professor River Song (Crowley assumes) at least has the sense to hold still. “All right, good thing I’m used to being greeted that way,” she says in bemusement. “What’s next? One wrong step and I’ll be shot? Eaten by a giant serpent?”

“Ew, no,” Crowley responds automatically, insulted. “That’s disgusting in every conceivable fashion, thank you.”

“No, it’s more like Time just struck a gong, and I’m pretty sure the cloister bell joined in,” Not-Jane says cautiously.

River’s bemusement becomes taut. “How close am I to breaking a fixed point in time?”

“Really, really close.” The Doctor tilts his head sideways. “Just trying to figure out how close. Give us a moment.”

Not-Jane rests her finger alongside her nose. “Oh, that’s really close. But not immediate?”

Crowley winces back from a flash of leathery black wings and skin that glows like a forge. “After Samael digs his way up. As long as she leaves before then, it’s fine. She won’t die here.”

“I’m not sensing that sort of fault line here, and _you_ aren’t a Time Lord—oh.” River lifts both eyebrows. “I haven’t run into a Celestial in a while, let alone two.”

“Four,” Israfil corrects her, and River grins in mischievous delight. It’s exactly the sort of grin that Crowley would trust ensured a lot of fun as long as he never, ever turned his back on her.

“And it’s about to be seven, plus a random bonus,” Crowley drawls. At least she’s not squawking about Celestials not being real. Makes things easier.

“And…” River’s eyes widen. “Two versions of you that I haven’t met. This should be fun—oh, you are such a darling young one,” she says of the Doctor.

Not-Jane rolls her eyes. “River!”

“What?” River smirks in response. “It’s not like we’re not married.”

“That isn’t how you greet people!”

“Married,” the Doctor repeats in a faint voice. “Oi, no, I said I was never doing that again!”

“I was definitely _not_ the first person to change your mind.” River's eyes are on Rose, who blinks a few times and then blushes while glancing at the Doctor. To Crowley’s vast amusement, the Doctor’s ears turn red.

Not-Jane sighs. “Hold on, I’ve figured out the problem. River, the fracture point in Time isn’t here, but it would break the actual fixed point. I’m so sorry.”

River catches on quickly. “My death is the fixed point. If I die here…hmm. Oh, well. Do I at least have time to be of any help?”

The Doctor glances at Not-Jane. “Five hours would be a safe cut-off point, yeah?”

“Yeah, probably,” Not-Jane agrees after a moment. “She’s right about the help, anyway. I mean, no offence, Jack, you’re going to be helping because you understand the technology, but you don’t have a sense for Time, and she does. We’re going to need that.”

“Works for me. The Professor and I have joined forces a few times before,” Jack says, grinning at River. “How’re you doing?”

River lets out a brief sigh of what Crowley suspects is relief. “Better now that I know it’s safe to be here for a few hours. Hello again, Captain Troublemaker.” She holsters the bloody ray gun. “All right, then. Plan?”

“Not until everyone’s here.” Crowley reaches into his jacket and pulls out his ringing mobile. “Don’t shoot these people, all right? Think of it like your teleporting doohickey. Yeah?” he answers on the third ring.

“We’re coming through,” Michael says. “Floor space, please.”

“Done.” Crowley holds his phone out towards the nearest empty space…which happens to be where River is standing. She again proves she has a brain by immediately backing away to join the small crowd in front of the two blue ships.

Michael, Crowley is expecting, though the armor shouldn’t have surprised him. Saraquel also shouldn’t have been a surprise, considering it’s his literal job to protect mortals and mortal souls.

The third man in armor makes Crowley seethe. “What the _fuck_, Michael!”

“No, wait, me first!” Not-Jane interrupts, pointing at Michael. “You! I know who you are! You bloody well tried to kill me with that stupid glowing sword!”

“_And_ me, though I definitely wasn’t your first choice for murderin’,” Rose adds, glaring at Michael. “You acted like I didn’t even matter.”

“I’ve never once seen your faces before.” Michael sounds almost as prissy as Aziraphale, which is an accomplishment. “When was this supposed attempt of slaying meant to take place?”

“Four B.C.E. Late spring. Bethlehem,” Not-Jane says flatly.

Huh. That really explains the warning she gave Crowley in 1020 BC about avoiding Bethlehem.

“Oh. Oh, dear,” Michael mutters, while Saraquel gives Michael an expectant grin. “Crowley? Where were you at the time?”

“South America.” Crowley would be a lot happier at seeing his eldest sibling squirm with embarrassment if there wasn’t a bigger problem. “Yes, you tried to kill the wrong person, though I suspect you didn’t try all that hard in the first place, but you also brought the one bloody person we both agreed would be a_ fucking terrible idea to invite!_”

“I’m not here for Samael.” Gabriel sounds as stiff as the board he still insists on having shoved up his arse.

“And the Himalayas are in Hawaii,” Crowley retorts, crossing his arms. “Why, then?”

Gabriel flinches. “Sandalphon.”

“Typhaon,” Crowley corrects him. “Still asking why.”

“I’m…partly responsible for what he has chosen to become. Or at least, I encouraged his behavior,” Gabriel grits out. Crowley is impressed that Gabriel managed to admit it; that’s further than Israfil suggested Gabriel has managed to get in regards to coming to terms with his own fuck-ups.

“If you interfere with this plan. If you attack Samael. If you get in the way of those who deal with him.” Crowley lets out an angry sigh. “Everyone on this planet dies. You understand that, right?”

Gabriel lowers his head, frowning. “Yes.”

“Good. Then realize the only way in _hell_ I'll let you remain here is if you vow an oath not to interfere with Samael’s defeat. You won’t lay a hand on him. You say you’re here for Typhaon, so that’s where your focus stays.” Crowley rolls his eyes when Gabriel hesitates. “I will send you to the other side of the fucking galaxy and leave you unable to teleport, Gabriel. You can figure out how to get home on your own. Vow it, agree to leave, or I will _make_ you leave.”

“You can’t actually make me leave,” Gabriel says. Crowley shrugs and snaps his fingers, making Gabriel vanish.

“Where did you send him, my dear?” Aziraphale asks, though he doesn’t sound particularly concerned. Crowley knows his angel well enough to hear the gleeful satisfaction hiding beneath the polite question.

“The Himalayas.”

Gabriel pops back in a moment later, a dusting of snow on his hair and the leather-armor combination he’s wearing. “Now just see here—”

Crowley snorts and snaps his fingers again. Saraquel starts laughing.

Michael shakes his head. “Little brother, where is he now?”

“That one might’ve been a volcano,” Crowley says. “Not sure if it’s active at the moment or not, but it likes to spew up burning sulfur.”

Gabriel returns with singed hair and reddened features. “Crowley—”

Crowley holds up his hand. “Next one’s the other side of the galaxy.”

“Fine! All right. I’ll make the stupid vow!” Gabriel shouts before Crowley can finish snapping his fingers. “There is no need to be so impolite about this!”

“Oh, _sunshine_, I definitely think there is,” Crowley growls back, but lowers his hand. Gabriel had the decency to flinch when Crowley called him sunshine. Recognition of past events and how pissed off Crowley still feels about them: definitely a bonus. Especially when the idiot who instigated those events still hasn’t apologized to Aziraphale.

“Fine.” Gabriel straightens himself, fixes his hair, and removes the burnt flush from his skin. “I, Gabriel, leader of the Heavenly Host, vow that I will not interfere in the destruction of Samael in any way, shape, or form, unless by consensus of myself, Michael and Saraquel, it is judged necessary to do so. Are you happy now?”

“Ecstatic,” Crowley drawls, just as Israfil holds up his phone and announces, “Incoming!”

Ba‘al emerges from the phone and steps to one side, already straightening their favored long-cut black jacket. They’re quickly followed by a brunette woman dressed in near-business attire, except her trousers are flared and wide for ease of movement, her shoes are flats rather than heels, her jacket is leather, and she has a sword strapped over her shoulder. Her eyes are brown, like her hair; her eyes burn with endless fire.

“You brought Lucy.” Crowley buries his face in his hands. “That’s just great.”

“Oh, for—Ba‘al!” Israfil shouts. “You couldn’t have bloody warned us?”

“You might have said no, had I done so,” Ba‘al replies, their expression proud and unreadable.

Crowley drops his hands in resignation. “You lot, behave yourselves,” he says to Michael, Gabriel, and Saraquel, though only Saraquel is managing not to look murderous. “I wouldn’t have said no to Lucy, Ba‘al, but I would have been able to warn _him_!” He points at Adam, who is unashamedly hiding behind Donna and Mickey.

Lucy’s eyes widen, bright flame tapering down to dark embers. “Oh. Yes. That would have been prudent, wouldn’t it? You have my apologies, Adam. This is…not how I wanted us to meet.”

“We already met. Sort of,” Adam mumbles.

“That doesn’t count.” Lucy flicks a hint of ash off of her jacket. “There are other things to be concerned with right now, such as the treachery plotted against me by a number of fools from Below. That requires my attention and presence, especially when it involves Samael.” She glances over at the others. “Greetings. I am not here to wage war against anyone in this shop, but I will defend myself if someone is foolish enough to begin an inappropriate argument.”

Michael and Gabriel stare at each other for a moment. “Fine.” Michael heaves a sigh and releases his grip on his sword. “I am capable of understanding that there is a time and a place. Right, brother?”

Gabriel glares at Lucy for a moment before giving in. “Of course. There are more important problems right now other than past quarrels.”

_Which is why I haven’t kicked your arse halfway across the galaxy yet,_ Crowley thinks sourly. “Ground rules: no tempting, no deals, and for the moment, no trades unless it’s useful for dealing with our current problem.” It’s a relief when Ba‘al and Lucy both nod in calm agreement. “No bloody smiting anyone just because someone’s back is turned, either,” he adds, which makes Gabriel scowl. “Please stop making me feel like I’m dealing with toddlers. I hate being responsible for other people’s idiocy when I can be an idiot just fine on my own.”

“Now can we find out what the bloody plan is?” Mickey asks. Crowley approves of that amount of irritated sarcasm. “Because we know you have one, and I’d like to finally hear it.”

Crowley nods and looks to Not-Jane. “I made them behave. Your turn.”

“Right.” Not-Jane takes a breath and then grins. “Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do. Buckle up, you lot; some of it’s a bit weird.”


	19. Networking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “How are things in London?”
> 
> “Completely bonkers. Like, end of the world again bonkers, but we’re not gonna let that happen.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took me an extra day to realize I'd actually written more than a chapter's worth of story. Maybe more like 2-3 extra days. (Tired is a thing.) 
> 
> Then I realized that what I thought was only going to be one chapter decided Fuck You HAHAHHAHAHHAAH No! Because of course.
> 
> Props to @morgynleri & @norcumi for cheer-reading!

Adam frowns at the piece of paper he’s practicing on with a pencil. His latest attempt _looks_ right, but then he studies the example Aziraphale left at the top of the page and scowls. It’s close, but it’s not right. If it’s not right, it won’t work.

He’s glad he’s been drawing more naff stuff lately. Runes are stupid difficult to copy.

He stares at the example rune, which sometimes gives him an unpleasant feeling down his spine._ I’m not a demon_, he reminds the rune sternly, and the feeling goes away.

It takes two more tries, but then he has it. “Yes!”

“You think you’ve got it?” Martha is practicing next to him, her face screwed up in intense concentration. Adam looks at her attempts and wonders if it’s not just a thing that doctors on the telly do—if all doctors have such awful handwriting. “Because I have to admit, I’m struggling, kiddo.”

“Maybe you should just hold the bucket while I paint the symbol,” Adam suggests. He’s only half-kidding, but Martha looks at him like he’s brilliant.

“That might be a good idea. It’s not like I’d be speeding us along or anything, and…” Martha glances at him.

Adam does his best not to roll his eyes. “And someone would be lookin’ after me, right?”

Martha grins. “I’ve got two kids. I’d be right terrified if I knew they were wandering Soho at night, even if it was for a good reason.”

He thinks about it. “Yeah, okay.” Even Pepper gets overprotective about her baby sister, and her baby sister could probably scare off demons. “Just no natterin’ on about me and bedtimes. Deal?” Adam asks, holding out his hand.

Martha shakes it with a bright grin. “Deal.” She picks up the brush marker that Israfil was using earlier and hands it over. “Let’s see if you can do it with a paintbrush, then, right?”

Adam nods and gives it a go, listening to everything happening around him as he does so. Wilf is muttering under his breath about being too unsteady on his feet to help, and Adam really gets that. If the adults had sat him down and said No Way, he’d be cheesed off, too. He still has some sort of wicked mobile phone setup that Jack and River helped him put together, so everyone will be able to talk to each other, and Wilf gets to be in charge of that.

He debates for a moment: wicked mobile and listening to everyone natter while they scout out Soho, or painting this symbol on doors.

Adam’s only eleven-and-a-half. Graffiti wins out by a landslide.

At the other table, Mickey is swearing under his breath, but Adam thinks he’s going to get it. Rose has been teasing him, making Adam suspect that she copied the rune right away and is just waiting for Mickey to catch up. Gabriel, who Adam still quietly thinks of as a complete tit, doesn’t need to practice it, and neither does Michael. Saraquel—who reminds Adam quite a bit of himself, though Saraquel is terribly good-looking in a way that Pepper would find insulting—does take a few minutes to practice.

“You’ll be getting the doors on the street level, Adam. No breaking-and-entering for you.” Crowley puts a stack of eight kid-sized plastic buckets on the table, bright and cheerful things that look like they were purchased for Easter. “Humans get to mark the interior doors that aren’t locked up. The others will take care of marking the flats hiding behind bolted doors, since locks won’t stop them.”

“Right.” Adam stares at the buckets, feeling sort of offended. It’s not that he minds the colors, it’s just…they’re for kids. “Crowley?”

“Blame Aziraphale,” Crowley explains. “He got them one year for spoiling the neighborhood with Hallowe’en treats, and these are the leftovers. They’re unused, and they’ve been living in a bookshop with an angel for several years. Can’t really do better than that.”

Adam wrinkles his nose. “Can those even _hold_ a pint of blood?”

“Yep.” Crowley takes the only red bucket from the stack, leaving the others to choose between neon pink, neon orange, and a bright green color that actually looks sort of gross. “And don’t ask how I know that.”

“Nope.” Knowing Crowley, it was either something stupid, or something adult-disgusting. Because he could.

Crowley gives Adam a brief glare. “And no, you’re _not_ bleeding into one of these buckets. You’re eleven.”

“I can handle it,” Adam protests, valiantly ignoring the fact that the last time he cut himself, he nearly passed out. It’s really a good thing that he didn’t want to be the Antichrist. Not ending the world aside, he’d be terrible at it.

“You’re _eleven_,” Crowley repeats firmly. “No.”

“Right, yeah. Okay.” Adam draws the glyph again with the brush marker, glad to see it match up proper. “Can I borrow your mobile, then? I wanted to give the Them a ring and see if they’re okay.”

Crowley reaches over, steals Israfil’s mobile from his jacket pocket— “Hey!” —and gives it to Adam. “I’m going to need mine,” he says, and wanders off into the stacks.

Martha looks up at Aziraphale as he comes out of the back room, holding a number of really nice paintbrushes in his hands. “Where did this idea come from, anyway? Are we sure it’s even going to work?”

“Sure it will.” Adam picks up his paper and holds it up. “Hey, Ba‘al! Look at this!”

Ba‘al turns around on instinct and then flinches back. “That was not kind!”

Adam grins. “At least it wasn’t the blood version.”

“Don’t show me that one,” Ba‘al says flatly, but Adam thinks they’re amused. Adam kind of likes them, even if they are a demon. Crowley started off that way, too, and he makes for a wicked godfather.

“As to where the idea came from…” Aziraphale purses his lips and looks displeased. “Egypt, dear.”

Everyone at the table looks up. “Wait. That really happened? The ten plagues of Egypt?” Martha asks, wide-eyed.

Adam frowns. The only thing he remembers about the plagues of Egypt is something from some old movie that his parents said was a classic. Adam just thought it was stupid. What was stoppin’ everyone from just getting’ up and leaving, anyway? In the movie, there were way more Israel people than there were Egyptian people.

Also, who would waste gold making some stupid cow? You could do much cooler things with gold, like circuitry and alchemy.

(Anathema was very stern: Adam isn’t allowed to practice alchemy no matter how cool _Harry Potter_ implied it would be.)

“The very same plagues, yes.” Aziraphale sighs. “It was not a very nice time for anyone involved.”

Rose gives Aziraphale a sympathetic look. “So…we’re painting everyone’s doors in blood to repel demons. What were the slaves repelling?”

“Death,” Gabriel answers, totally unaware of the fact that he sounds way too happy. Adam sighs as Gabriel also totally misses the fact that people are glaring at him. Israfil says Gabriel is getting better, but this sort of better is the kind of person who Adam always roots for getting eaten by the monster in the horror films he’s not supposed to be watching. That bit is entirely Crowley’s doing, but since Crowley uses them as an opportunity to point out to Adam that it’s the smart an’ well-intentioned characters who survive, Aziraphale lets him get away with it.

“It was not necessarily about repelling,” Aziraphale explains once he’s done scowling at Gabriel. The archangel doesn’t notice _that_, either, but Adam catches Michael smirking about it. “It was…well, after nine blasted plagues, the last straw was to see how many people were going to pay attention to basic instructions on how to safeguard themselves from danger. I wasn’t fond of the idea, given who would pay the price for it, but it also was not my decision to make.”

Aziraphale takes off those weird spectacles of his and sighs. “A surprising number of Israelites _and_ Egyptians were still being…stubborn. The next morning was exceptionally difficult to endure.”

“You were there.” Mickey’s skin is the wrong color entirely. Adam feels bad for him. He’s sorta getting used to the Biblical weirdness, but this has been his life since last summer. “Like, actually_ there._”

“I had no choice,” Aziraphale murmurs, dropping the collection of paintbrushes into the stack of buckets.

“What do you mean, the Egyptians?” That finally got Gabriel’s attention. He’s frowning at Aziraphale in a way that Adam _really_ doesn’t like. “The Israelites were the only ones who were supposed to be granted that warning.”

“Hmm. Yes. Well.” Aziraphale fiddles at his sleeve a bit, but faces Gabriel’s anger without any other sort of nervousness. “I might have told the _opposition_ about the oncoming tenth plague, and he _might _have set about informing everyone else in the kingdom.”

“I might _also_ have cursed everyone who didn’t mark their fucking doors,” Crowley says from the stack behind them, and then he swears under his breath. He’s looking for a book, but even Adam knows that Aziraphale’s way of organizing things in the shop is completely mental. “Put blood on your door so your eldest kid doesn’t die. The Nile had been a river of blood for _weeks_ at that point. You’d think those would be easy instruction after something like that, and still there were parents who faffed off about it all. Fuck the lot of them.”

“I might not have uncursed anyone afterwards,” Aziraphale whispers to Adam, who nods without smiling. Crowley likes kids. Aziraphale says he _always_ has. Those were probably not very nice curses.

Crowley peers around the edge of the bookshelf to look at Gabriel. “Say it. Go ahead.”

“That was deliberately going against Her word!” Gabriel blurts out, incensed.

“Really.” Crowley doesn’t look bothered. “Y’know, only one person was in charge of freeing those slaves. Just one man would make that decision. I got sick of seeing entire civilizations punished for the mistakes of a few right around the time of the Flood. Sometimes it’s not about blind obedience, Gabe. It’s about _doing the right thing_. You remember how to do that, yeah?”

Adam bites down on his tongue so he doesn’t giggle at Gabriel being all red-faced and sputtery. “And, well,” Aziraphale chooses to add, “if She sees all and knows all, then She knows exactly what was done, and yet we remain remarkably intact for supposedly going against Her will.”

“Besides, I was a demon. I was supposed to thwart God’s will.” Crowley holds up one of Aziraphale’s books. “This one?”

Aziraphale shakes his head. “No, no, that’s too modern. I recopied the information from the pertinent scrolls ages ago. I just can’t seem to recall if they’re still in the shop, or if I sent them to your flat to be out of the path of temptation for a certain visiting thief.”

“Seems like you weren’t all that great at your job, not letting people die,” Wilf says to Crowley with a smile.

“Excuse you, I was _very_ good at my job!” Crowley protests, insulted. “I just wasn’t a complete prick about it.” He shakes his head and retreats behind the shelf again. “Still have no bloody idea why Dagon decided I was responsible for the Spanish Inquisition. Humans did that nonsense all on their own.”

Ba‘al is suddenly _very_ interested in the conversation. Hanging about with his godfathers, angels, demons, and random time-traveling humans is way better than watching telly. “How many of your reports did you falsify, Crowley?” Ba‘al asks in a growl.

Crowley steps back out into view, holding a smaller book that might be bound in leather. Adam hopes it’s leather, anyway, but it looks sort of bunched-up and wrong. “More like the only one I _didn’t_ lie on was the one for the M-25. I mean, come on. Demon. You’d be disappointed if I hadn’t lied, and you know it.”

“Blessed sakes, Crowley,” Ba‘al grumbles, but Adam’s attention is riveted on Lucy. They’re _laughing_. They’re chuckling like Crowley just did the most amusing thing ever, even while Ba‘al keeps swear-blessing.

Adam’s life is really weird.

Rose is resting her chin in her hand. Adam still feels sort of weirded out by her, but she’s not trying to do anything. She’s just…well. Weird. “When did you stop being a demon, then?”

Crowley puts the wrong-looking book away after Aziraphale declares it another reject. “Last September. Why?”

“Oh.” Rose seems really amused by that. “No reason, I suppose.”

“Yeah, all right, changing the subject now to one that’s less bloody depressing than murderin’ people and Crowley being an odd bastard,” Mickey says. “What’s the difference between just drawing this rune on a door, and drawing it in your blood? Which is really gross, by the way.”

“My blood is quite unsullied, thank you,” Gabriel snips back, offended. Adam has to choke down another giggle.

Lucy looks up from his—her—their—examination of Aziraphale’s locked bookcase behind the till. “A mark will keep a demon from crossing the threshold, but it would not necessarily safeguard an entire domicile. A mark written in an angel’s blood will actively repel a demon from wishing to enter the household at all.”

“Would it stop _you_?” Saraquel asks, looking like he really wants to know the answer. Saraquel is the only one aside from Israfil and Crowley who are treating Lucy with politeness. Everyone else is either terrified of them or wants to start a fight. Adam thinks it’s really stupid. He doesn’t _like_ his not-dad, but he’s not going to haul off and punch them. Probably not, anyway, but it’s not dawn yet.

Lucy pauses. “I would certainly be cautious if I chose to defy it, as it would attract attention.”

“That wasn’t a no.” Saraquel shrugs. “Huh. You put yourself back together pretty well, little sister.”

Lucy’s expression goes flat and angry before they stalk off. Adam tries not to wince, because he’s seen that expression in his mirror some mornings. Ugh, no. He belongs to his parents, not to Lucy or Lucifer or whatever they want to call themselves.

It doesn’t stop Adam from wondering if it’s properly not-dad, or if it’s actually not-mom.

Oh, crap! No, he didn’t want to think about that! That was not okay!

“I’m gonna go call my friends,” Adam tells Martha, and goes to hide on the upper part of Aziraphale’s back staircase with Israfil’s mobile. He takes a moment to reach out to Tadfield, which just means thinking about it, so he can figure out where they are.

They’re at Jasmine Cottage. Adam grins; that was really smart of the Them.

He dials Anathema’s number and waits, listening to the phone ring, before Newt picks up. “Hello?”

“Hi, Newt!” Adam says, trying to sound cheerful. “All right, there?”

“Uhm—yes.” Newt doesn’t sound all right. Newt sounds like he wants to hide under a table. “Your friends are, uh, well, they are very much themselves.”

Adam grins. “Great! Can I talk to Anathema?” He likes Newt, but Anathema can get through a conversation without tripping over everything.

“Sure, hold on a moment.”

Adam waits, tapping his fingers on his denims. All at once, he can smell blood. It turns his stomach, making him think of slaughter and death and screaming—

Nope, he has enough nightmares of the bad stuff he could have done. Adam retreats backwards until he’s in the middle of Aziraphale’s sitting room floor, and he can’t smell the blood anymore. He hopes that it doesn’t smell like that while he’s painting the rune on people’s doors to keep them safe from Samael’s allies. If it does, Martha might end up painting doors by herself.

Still means he worries about Aziraphale, Israfil, Michael, and Saraquel bleeding into those stupid children’s buckets, though. Okay, maybe even he’s worried about Gabriel, but only in the sense that Gabriel might pass out from sullying his stupid Celestial body with something as human as bleeding.

“Hi, Adam!” Anathema sounds out of breath. “Was it your idea to turn Scrabble into a full-contact sport?”

“Might’ve done,” Adam says, but he’s really not sure. That sounds more like Pepper’s thing, really. “I’ll fix anything that got broken.”

“When I realized I was going to have a congregation in my house, I hid everything breakable,” Anathema returns dryly. “How are—how are things in London?”

“Completely bonkers. Like, end of the world again bonkers, but we’re not gonna let that happen.”

“That’s…good.” Anathema draws in a breath. “One of those angel statues was here earlier. At dusk.”

Adam feels a flash of ice in his arms and legs. “Everyone’s okay, though. Right?”

“Oh, we’re fine. Everyone followed instructions and stared at the _creepy moving statue_ until Pepper could sneak up behind it and knock its head off. With a blessed cricket bat.” Anathema sounds like she wants to laugh and cry at the same time. “I’m a witch. I should be used to my life being like this.”

“I’m supposed to have been the Antichrist. I don’t think you ever really get used to it,” Adam says, and Anathema laughs. “I’m gonna be painting doors with angel blood all night to ward off demons. How cool is that?”

“That is way cool,” Anathema agrees in complete honesty. It’s awesome having a real witch for a friend. “Should we keep an eye out for any more company here? Moving statues? Demons? Aliens?”

Adam thinks about Israfil saying that this will be the last repeating Friday, and that Anathema will remember stuff tomorrow. “Well…Crowley made all of the angel statue construct things leave Earth, so no more of them should show up. Demons are a maybe, but you’ve got a blessed cricket bat an’ all. Oh, and there are two aliens downstairs, not to mention the human who’s from the future _and_ from another galaxy.”

He’s already pulled the mobile away from his ear when Anathema starts shrieking with joy. At least all the other Fridays prepared him for that reaction.

* * * *

“Arnickleton,” Jack suggests. “There’s enough of it floating around thanks to the sprouting Cybermen event.”

“Ugh. Don’t ever call it that again, even if it’s accurate,” the Doctor says, making a face. “Also, it wouldn’t work. It’s too fragile.”

Her younger self shakes his head. “I don’t even want to know. Trintillium would hold up to the strength of a singularity, though.”

“Yeah, but we’re dealing with a telepath.” Jack takes notes on an iPad that is several years off from where it should be; they haven’t invented that particular interface yet. “Trintillium might give Samael the means to take over the entire thing.”

“Yeah. Point.” The Doctor frowns. “Sheffield steel is always an option, easy to get, but it wouldn’t hold up by itself. The melting temperature is too low.”

“And you can’t re-forge halkonite,” River counters, “unless you’ve installed a forge since my last trip aboard the TARDIS. Since I know you’re not that practical, maybe the Hydra alloy?”

“NO,” Jack and the Doctor say together. “Sorry, seen it fail, not in the mood to see it again,” the Doctor explains. “Also, don’t ask,” she warns her younger self. “It’s not pretty.”

“Got it.” Her younger self rubs his chin. “Cibrianite is out, too, if we’re dealing with a psychic risk.”

Donna taps a pen against her knee. “Beryllium.”

“We_ are_ dealing with time energy in regards to a black hole vomiting up its insides.” River leans back against the open doorway of the younger TARDIS. “Beryllium couldn’t do it alone, though.”

“Terullian,” Jack suggests. “Pretty sure we have some of that in the Archives.”

“Energy conductor. Okay. Two down.” The Doctor paces back and forth. “Photovine steel would be so bloody handy right now.”

“Not sure if there’s any of that on Earth.” Jack jots it down anyway. “Good idea, though.”

Donna huffs and rolls her eyes. “You’re all overlooking an obvious one. Incredulitas Four.”

“Matter transport. Yes, yes, oh, very good!” the Doctor’s younger self cheers, grinning.

“Yes, but finding it local—that’d be the hard part,” the Doctor says. “Course, weirder things have turned up lately.”

River frowns for a moment. “Molybdenum. That’s our insurance that the energy output doesn’t melt down the entire device right at the start.”

“We would still need something to stabilize it,” Donna insists. “We need something that _will not_ give. Besides, we have to get the molybdenum in the first place.”

Crowley drops a book on the nearest table with a solid thump. “My watch has molybdenum in it. Bet you we can find it.”

“Why does your watch have molybdenum in it?” Jack asks.

“Alien watchmaker. How else are you going to get a watch that can keep track of time in other dimensions?” Crowley flicks the book open and then scowls at it. “What are those stupid pepper pots made out of, anyway?”

The Doctor glances at her younger self. “Dalekanium,” they both say. She wonders if he feels as stupid as she does right then. Dalekanium attracts gamma radiation, which is just what a black hole likes to eat best.

Donna smirks at them. “There’s your stable element, then. There has to be some of that lurking about _somewhere_.”

Jack glances at Donna. “Canary Wharf didn’t reset, remember? Torchwood snatched up everything before UNIT could descend and make off with everything we owned, including the rubble.” Jack pulls out his mobile. “I can make a phone call and have whatever we need delivered. The warehouse is right here in London.”

“That still doesn’t give us the rest. If we’re diverting the energy from a singularity into space, it’s _all_ necessary!” River scowls. “That’s not even considering the fact that we don’t have enough time!”

Crowley goes still, the page he flipped falling with a slight flutter of air. “How much time is not enough time?”

“_If_ we cheat and use the vortex manipulators to teleport everything here—which is also riding on us being able to find it all…” Jack glances up at the Doctor. “Call it.”

The Doctor sighs. “Forty-five minutes. We need every single bit of time we have left, and then another forty-five minutes—and that’s with us rushing the build.”

“You can’t do that cheat you pulled earlier, dropping us all back an hour in time?” Crowley asks, a curious tilt to his head that the Doctor finds infuriatingly familiar. Some things should _really_ not be genetic!

Her younger self shakes his head. “Not at this point. We’re stuck right in the midst of what’s already happening.”

“It only worked before because all of us were aboard the TARDIS, taking part of _those_ events as they happened,” the Doctor tries to explain. “We’re at a point where we can’t really step outside of our own timelines, not without mucking things up. The TARDIS probably wouldn’t even let us have a go at it. Side trips to other locations, maybe, but not going backwards in time. Some things you really do have to do the hard way.”

Crowley’s eyes are hidden by his glasses, but she can tell that he’s looking at her. “Forty-five minutes. Great. Fuck. All right, forget that part for now. Do you know what you need, and how much of it?”

Jack holds up his iPad long enough to wave it around. “Got everything. Doc, you wanna check my numbers?” he asks, handing it over to her younger self.

“Not bad. Maybe twice as much on the Photovine steel, but otherwise…yeah.” He hands the iPad back to Jack. “We’ve got it. Schematics are already drawn.”

Crowley nods and pulls out his mobile. “Call your people, Jack. Phone conference time. Also, you’re not allowed to arrest them _or_ me when this is over.”

Jack raised an eyebrow in the midst of dialing a number on his mobile. “And why would I want to do that?”

“Someone’s been trying to shut down operations since we started. Given what you’ve said about Torchwood, I figure it was most likely your lot who kept poking their noses into things,” Crowley replies.

“Good evening, Captain.” That’s Ianto Jones, if the Doctor is remembering a brief few seconds of interaction properly.

“I need you at a terminal, Ianto. Time for a scavenger hunt,” Jack announces.

Ianto’s swearing is lovely, colorful Welsh. “Tell me it’s something we’ve already added to the digital catalogue.”

“Alien metals.”

“Oh, thank God.” Ianto sighs in relief. “Ready when you are, then.”

“Yeah, stand by. Oh, and be ready to get One involved in this. We’ll need access to the Thames warehouse.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll have Luke wake the cranky bastards now.”

Jack smiles. “That kid is worse than me for not sleeping.”

“You’re a very bad influence,” Ianto replies smugly.

Crowley is watching his mobile, which has just switched over to a very generic voice messaging service. Then he dials a second number the moment the message is done and waits.

A boy, one who sounds like he might be all of nine years, old, answers the second call. “Midnight denture cleaning services! No stain too large, no crack too unsurmountable. May I help you?”

Crowley looks nauseated. “Really? That’s the best you could think of, Nat?”

“I do like to mix things up from time to time. Code, sir?” Nat asks.

“Four-one-one-six-nine-one-two, and I’m activating the entire Network.”

Nat whistles. “The last time you did that, it was eleven years before the world was scheduled to possibly end, and you were giving everyone the head’s up that maybe we should all take an offworld vacation in August 2019.”

Crowley regards his mobile in pointed silence.

“Fuck. Fuck! Not fucking again!” Nat goes off, sounding closer to nineteen now than nine. “Are you fucking joking?”

“Nope. Not going to let it happen, though, so the faster you activate the Network, the more chance you’ll still have a planet to live on tomorrow,” Crowley says dryly. “Oh, and you’re on a conference call, because this has to get done _right now_.”

“Yeah, got it. Secondary code for opening up the entire Network, sir?” Nat asks in resignation.

“A-J-C-four-zero-zero-four, three-zero-two-seven.” Crowley grimaces after the recitation. “Gonna have to change that again after today.”

“Right. Putting you on hold for a moment to bring everyone else in,” Nat warns them. The mobile’s speakers begin playing not dull and awful hold music, but classical Spanish guitar. The Doctor recognizes the melody, which originated from a world six galaxies away a few hundred years ago.

Donna takes in the others’ lack of surprise. “Am I the only person standing here who doesn’t know what this bleedin’ Network is?” she asks crossly.

Crowley smirks at her. “Yep.”

“Then dish it out, sunshine!” Donna retorts. “I’m helping; no leaving me in the dark, you.”

“It’s an alien black market,” Ianto says from Jack’s phone. “It was established on Earth early in the twentieth century, though it only pops up on Torchwood’s radar when it involves items of questionable nature.”

“Questionable nature meaning ‘will destroy the planet’ or ‘naughty weapons,’” River clarifies. The Doctor despairs over River’s nostalgic smile, because that means some of those _questionable_ items ended up being sold elsewhere, for profit, and probably made the Doctor’s life difficult at some point in the last two thousand years. “The Network is quite the useful bunch. I do believe my parents were involved in some of their resource-shuffling for a time.”

The Doctor tries to be surprised by that, but fails. Amy and Rory were probably finding things a bit dull in the States, anyway, and they would have kept away from the questionable bits…or they were the ones to ask River to get rid of it all.

Her younger self eyes River in wary curiosity, but his explanation is aimed at Donna. “The bit with the weaponry is one of the Network’s few established rules. They’re self-policing, you see. Anyone who doesn’t play by those rules often ended up gift-wrapped and left for UNIT to find.”

“At least until Torchwood took over that aspect of global security—though that was Yvonne Hart masterminding the transfer of that particular authority,” Ianto confirms. “Personally I’d be glad to give part of that responsibility _back_ to UNIT, but, well…”

“Kate is still in _such_ a mood.” Jack shakes his head. “If we can ever finalize negotiations to regain access to the Black Archive, then maybe we’d have a place to put this shit when we find it.”

“They’ve cut everyone off from the Black Archive?” the Doctor asks in disbelief. “Then who’s keeping it secure? The contents of that place could destroy this entire bloody galaxy!”

“Oh, that’s so reassuring to hear,” Crowley mutters.

“One of the Queen’s shoestring budgets that isn’t really such a shoestring—they’re taking care of it for now,” Jack says. “The security protocols haven’t changed, at least.”

The Doctor decides she needs to stop thinking about _no one_ having responsibility for the Black Archive, and turns her attention back to Crowley. “How do you know about the Network?”

“Because in the first years of the twentieth century, aliens suddenly got it into their heads that Earth was this wonderful backwater to make a new life on, to hide on, or to retire to—God knows why, because really, there are so many other choices out there. London was a definitive favorite.” Crowley glares at his mobile when the guitar music continues. “Hurry up, you lot. So, suddenly we had immigrants in London who needed to get rid of things, and other immigrants who needed things. I met my tailor that way in 1912. Nice grandmotherly type, Lady Numeriana. Half Filipino, half…something out beyond Rigel whose name I never bloody remember.”

The Doctor’s younger self starts laughing. “You founded the Network.”

Crowley shrugs. “Opportunity knocked. Anyway, I just back the Network. They take care of the rest, including dropping off the occasional wrapped gift of idiots who refuse to understand that No means No. I didn’t even know they were being handed over to UNIT. Didn’t want to know. I needed deniability more than I needed to stick my nose into that mess.”

“Aside from it being a bit self-serving—”

“A _lot_ self-serving, thank you,” Crowley corrects Donna.

“—why set up that sort of underground system?”

“It was fucking 1912! Could you see any government at that time on this planet treating an alien being as anything other than something useful to dissect?” Crowley snorts. “It was also a very nice distraction from watching World War I fall into place, piece by literal bloody piece.”

“Sir, the Network is available and standing ready,” Nat cuts in before the Doctor can voice the question she wants to ask. Maybe she doesn’t have to, though. The look in Crowley’s eyes when he mentions that war—he was definitely there. She saw that look so often in the years afterwards, on so many tired, worn, terrified faces.

“Fabulous. Listen up. You’re cooperating with Torchwood on this, no questions asked on their part, because I want to have a planet to live on come morning.” Crowley waits through several grumbling voices, half of them swearing in their own languages. “Harkness, please reassure these people. I don’t want them angry with me.”

“Torchwood Three, Captain Jack Harkness, human colonist, origination point fifty-first century, Buayochanan Paenesos,” Jack says. Both the Doctor and her younger self give Jack surprised looks when he uses the proper name for the Boeshane Peninsula; she’s heard him say the true translation exactly once. “By technicality, I’m just as alien as you guys are, and I’m not interested in the Network unless it gets out of hand when it comes to the dangerous shit. Is that good enough?”

“Yeah, mate,” an unfamiliar woman answers. She sounds very Cockney with just a hint of the planet Sedna twisting her vowels. “That’s fine wi’ us. Didn’t know Torchwood’s lead boy weren’t local.”

“What do you need, Captain?” That one has a trace of Tagalog in his word pronunciation, definitely another language lurking behind it—Mayall II. They’re from the Andromeda galaxy. That definitely counts as being out beyond Rigel.

“We have a list, all alien metals. Any components and wiring that’s suited for each type you can get your hands on is a bonus, and we’ll pay for it,” Jack says. “We’re on a really short timer; we have to get it all together, right now. That means coordinates and locations, because we’re going to be teleporting in to collect it. Anything else on-site, we’re turning a blind eye to unless you’re hiding planet-enders. Sound all right so far?”

“Except for negotiating cost.” That one is male (probably) and his accent isn’t even remotely Earth-based. The Doctor thinks the maybe-bloke from Clom could at least _try_ to blend in a bit.

“Did you not hear the bit about the short timer?” Crowley drawls. “Negotiating afterwards, and don’t you dare say we won’t be fair. You know I’m good for it, even if you bastards try to bleed me dry every blasted time. Planet’s at stake. I’d like my flat to still exist in seven hours. Now: are we doing this or not?”

The Doctor smiles as the eight representatives of The Network voice their assent, even if some of it’s a bit grudging. “Jack, read that list. Torchwood, I hope you’re ready to toss up some dalekanium.”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m sending the location within the Thames warehouse to Jack’s phone right now, direct access already granted to…well. Who are you again?” Ianto asks politely.

She grins. “I’m the Doctor, Ianto Jones, but I won’t be making the pickup. You’ll be letting Professor River Song into your treasure trove.”

“If she takes anything except the dalekanium, I’m going to shoot her,” Ianto responds sourly. “Professor, don’t make me have to act on that threat. Not after the last time.”

“It wasn’t even tied down!” River protests, grinning. “But that’s not in the cards for today, darling. Business before pleasure, after all.”

“Children, play nice.” Jack clears his throat. “All right. Here’s what we need.”

* * * *

“Can I ask you something?”

Crowley stops copying a rune and glances over to find River Song standing…uncomfortably close to him. Of course, he considers someone at arm’s length to be too bloody close, and she is definitely pushing that boundary. “You can ask anything you want. Doesn’t mean I’ll answer.”

River’s smile implies that she appreciates that sort of response. “The Doctor gave me a quick rundown on why yours and your brother’s faces and voices are behind a perception filter. I’m just wondering if you’ll give me more details than just ‘reasons.’”

“Because spoiler alert, that’s why.”

Her smile widens. “That’s usually my line. What’s so special about the two of you, I wonder? Aside from the Celestial part. I suspect that’s just a pleasant bonus.”

“Because…” Crowley trails off. “Oh, I see. We’re going to meet you again.” He closes his eyes and tries to focus on that event, but the problem with avoiding the future is that he isn’t very good at picking out details. “Not sure how long that is from now, but it definitely happens before we meet you here. So: spoiler alert.” At least this particular future event doesn’t seem to involve River’s death.

“Is it a fixed point, then? That’s usually the only reason the Doctor and I ever bother with those sorts of precautions.”

Crowley glares at River. “Don’t you have metal parts to be retrieving?”

River holds up her left wrist, showing off a vortex manipulator that looks a bit more worn than Jack’s does. “It needs a few minutes to recharge, and then I’m off for one last run. I don’t think we’d be able to manage this in a timely manner at all—no pun intended—if Ba‘al and Lucy weren’t being so helpful.”

“Eh, they needed something to do. Keeps them out of trouble.” Crowley takes a moment to rub his eyes with his fingertips. Blast this fucking tiny, faded, scribbled print and his stupid eyesight.

“They’re not Celestials. Or if they are, they’re different from the rest of you. Why is that?” River asks, looking down at the open book. “Is that magic or mathematics you’re reading about?”

“Not much difference between them, really,” Crowley says. “Lucy and Ba‘al are demons, nosy lady. Fallen Celestials.”

“Like the Earth lore.” River doesn’t seem bothered by that, but Crowley is starting to suspect she isn’t much fussed by anything unless it relates to the Doctor or her own scheming. River really is the sort of person Crowley doesn’t want to have at his back, which is probably why his kid likes her. The Doctor has a psychopath at her back—or had, really—and Crowley put a bloody angel at his back, hoping for over six thousand demonic years that he would live long enough not to regret it.

“Close enough, yeah. Ba‘al is dating my brother, so they have a vested interest in keeping Israfil, and the rest of us, alive. Lucy is civilized, but don’t make the mistake of thinking she isn’t dangerous.” Crowley gives River a brief glance. “Sort of like you, really.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” River perks up as her vortex manipulator beeps. “Back to full charge. I’m off for my last load.”

“Great—hey, tell the others to put all of this shit into whichever ship they’re most comfortable building this thing in. If you assemble it out here, it won’t hold together.”

River gives him a thoughtful look. “Does this have something to do with those forty-five minutes we still need?”

Crowley nods. “Faster you get it done, faster you find out how and why.”

“Excellent.” River smirks at him and disappears in another flash of light before he can duck away.

“Dammit,” Crowley mutters, giving up on the book for now. He goes into the back room and climbs the stairs up to Aziraphale’s flat, heading straight for the sink in the bathroom. Rinsing his eyes helps a bit, but never as much as he’d like it to. He’s human-shaped with human tear ducts, and he’s not truly cold-blooded, but the serpent aspect still affects his form. His stupid eyes think they have a snake’s translucent protective lens and don’t bother with moisture unless crying is a thing that happens. There’s more than one reason he wears sunglasses most of the time.

_Was it that bad, thousands of years ago?_ Crowley wonders, glancing up at the mirror and regarding his eyes thoughtfully. He spent a lot of time in desert-like areas in the old days. When he concentrates, he remembers: springs, wells, the occasional oasis, water from an animal’s cured bladder. He’d rinsed sand and dust from his eyes three or four times a day to keep it from blinding him. _Yep. That bad._

That dry ache is worse when Crowley is tired, and he’s been feeling the drag of exhaustion since he escaped Tenebris and Hell. At some point soon, he’s going to need to spend another thirty minutes on the sofa just to keep his head together for the end game. He got more rest during Armageddon Week.

A polite tap on the bathroom door startles him before he hears Aziraphale say, “Crowley?”

“Yeah, it’s me, angel.” Crowley dries his face on a towel and opens the door, sunglasses in his hand. “What is it?”

“I was just…” Aziraphale presses his lips together in a prim line. “Forty-five minutes, Crowley?”

“Uh-huh.” Crowley puts his glasses back on. “It’s got to happen.”

“I’ve never seen you push beyond thirty minutes.” Aziraphale’s voice is perfectly even, but Crowley has always been able to read his angel’s eyes. Aziraphale is worried, but he won’t say it aloud—not now, not here. Everyone has to believe that this completely mental plan will work.

Crowley lifts his arms overhead, stretching until he’s balanced on his toes and his back feels like it’s in the right configuration again. “It’ll work,” he says, because he’s not about to admit that he’s never done this before for a bloody _reason_.

Aziraphale nods. “Then it will,” he agrees, smiling. “I believe in you, my dear.”

Crowley reaches out and snags Aziraphale’s hand. “What, no threats this time? Nothing about never speaking to me again if I fuck this up?”

Aziraphale blushes and tightens his grip. “Yes, yes, I know. I panicked. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“You said exactly what needed to be said, angel. We’re still alive because you’re just enough of a bastard to make it stick.” Crowley grins when Aziraphale glares at him. “Come downstairs, all right? Help me figure out how to make a protection circle with a perception filter for that singularity redirecting doohickey they’re going to build.”

“That shouldn’t be too difficult. I know it’s the other circle you’re more concerned with, so let me concentrate on the circle for the…er, doohickey.” Aziraphale pauses at the top of the stairs. “Do you really think that device will work?”

Crowley doesn’t even need to think about it. “The Doctor believes that it will. That’s good enough for me.”

“You love her already, don’t you?”

“Pfft.” Crowley turns and tilts his head so he can look back at Aziraphale while walking down the stairs. “Took me all of five minutes to fall in love with you. Don’t know why you’re so surprised.”

Downstairs, Jack is on the phone again using a Bluetooth-like headset that Crowley thinks isn’t really a Bluetooth at all. It’s too sleek, and the signal sounds are wrong. Crowley unashamedly eavesdrops on the conversation while Aziraphale takes over rune-copying. It’s not like Crowley didn’t warn them about his hearing, anyway.

“You know how likely they are to listen to me,” a woman is saying. She sounds vaguely military, definitely no-nonsense, probably is not any fun at all unless she’s really soused. “The moment they broke down UNIT—”

“Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, you keep forgetting how much certain people in high places still like you,” Jack counters, stopping long enough to toss his greatcoat into the green-lit TARDIS before he starts pacing again.

Crowley glances around the shop. None of them really know how to hold still except for Aziraphale, and that’s only because he’s now hyper-focused on the book. Even Michael is tapping on his own armor with his gloved fingertips. They’re ready to act, but won’t begin until Crowley freezes time. Not that any of his siblings aside from Israfil know that’s what Crowley’s planning to do.

“All right, yes. Her Majesty is still fond of me, even if she recalls my father’s work more than my own,” Kate admits. “Torchwood Quebec has gained enough of a foothold to have a say in the Commonwealth’s affairs, but clearing British airspace isn’t going to be easy, Jack.”

“It wasn’t easy to do that even when UNIT had full authority.” Jack picks up one of the last scrap bits of alien pepper pot retrieved from Torchwood’s mystery warehouse and hauls it into the younger ship. Crowley loses the woman’s voice, but Jack is still speaking when he pops back out.

“Yeah, I know. A Dalek turns up on New Year’s Day last year, takes over all global communications, and the UN is still arguing about whether or not reinstating a united planetary defence force is a good idea.” Jack rolls his eyes. “That’s exactly why I asked you to take on Torchwood Five.”

“Torchwood Quebec,” Kate corrects him wryly. “I’m telling you Jack, we’re going to need to switch from numbers to locations. Torchwood London has more clout than saying Torchwood One.”

“Yeah, yeah. Give me one political problem at a time, huh?” Jack huffs. “We just need to make certain the whole of Great Britain is a no-fly zone by four a.m., and then we keep it that way until someone who’s here on the ground calls in the all-clear. If governments won’t play nice, Ianto is ready to sic Tosh and Luke on them.”

“Easier to ask for forgiveness than to pay for a number of funerals due to multiple aviation disasters,” Kate muses. “Honestly, it might be easier if I skip the phone calls and just let Malcolm have at it.”

“God, don’t tempt me,” Jack says. “We ask nicely first, then we hack global aviation systems for everyone who is too stupid to play ball.”

“Right. Playing nice. Because that’s gotten me so far,” Kate mutters irritably. “You still haven’t explained why we’re clearing British airspace.”

“Oh, we’re going to be using a glorified alien satellite dish to divert a singularity so it forms as a new black hole somewhere off in space instead of it swallowing the Earth,” Jack says cheerfully.

Kate sighs. “The Doctor is involved, isn’t he?”

Jack grins at the younger Doctor, who gives Jack a properly suspicious look before tapping his watch in blatant reminder. “Two of ’em, actually.”

“Oh, bloody hell. At least it’s not three of them at once. That was worse,” Kate says. Crowley twitches in response. Please, no; he can barely handle having two versions of his kid in the same place.

“You owe me a story over drinks, then,” Jack replies. “Gotta go, Kate. Time to save the planet again.”

“I want a raise, Harkness!” Kate shouts before Jack ends the call.

“Man, she’s spoiled. We already have the same salary,” Jack says to the air. “How close are we?” he asks the Doctor.

“Just one more—” He’s interrupted by the sudden appearance of Ba‘al, who looks cross, but that’s normal for them. They’re holding a long coil of thick insulated wiring that doesn’t smell like anything produced on Earth.

“Humans collect and store _very_ strange things,” Ba‘al says, handing over their bundle. The younger Doctor accepts it and promptly looks startled by the weight. Ba‘al simply nods at the Doctor before strolling away.

“Oh, yeah. The strength bit didn’t really come up, did it?” Crowley murmurs, resisting the urge to cackle. Ba‘al always enjoyed their quiet little snarky actions, even when they were still an angel. They were probably hoping to topple a Time Lord with the weight of that wiring.

“What, dear?” Aziraphale asks, still scribbling down rune sets that Crowley would have dismissed out of old habit. Crowley’s mindset is still stuck in occult magics. Aziraphale is the one who keeps him from sliding off the angelic rails.

“Nothing,” Crowley answers, watching the Doctor resettle the coil and march it into the green-lit TARDIS. He wonders if his kid’s enhanced strength is from the Celestial blood, or if it’s a Gallifreyan thing.

“We’re ready now,” Not-Jane says, ducking out of her TARDIS and closing the doors behind her. “Just needed to grab an extra set of tools and fill my pockets with anything that might be useful.”

Crowley feels unwanted nerves curl up in his gut, trying to spread. He stomps them down and tells them to stay put. “Get the others up here. I need to be able to see everyone when I do this.”

Aziraphale puts down his quill and takes Crowley’s hand again with gentle fingers. “Please do not damage yourself to do this. It’s already been quite the day, dear.”

“It just turned midnight. New day, new way of breaking things,” Crowley says.

Aziraphale gives him a disapproving look. “Crowley.”

“What?” Crowley smiles and kisses his angel’s forehead, which always makes Aziraphale flush pink if there are other people around. “I’ll be good. Promise.”

“Your definition of _good_ has not actually changed all that much, despite the fact that you are no longer a demon,” Aziraphale returns in a flat voice, but the corners of his mouth are twitching upwards.

“That’s because I was always very good at what I did,” Crowley points out as Jack and the Doctor emerge from the green-lit TARDIS, shutting both its doors. “Showtime.”

* * * *

The Doctor is nervous. He’s never been much fond of the sensation, but he keeps getting into situations where it happens. A lot. He glances over at his older self, who is rummaging through the pockets of her coat (as well as a belt bag in the front) and wonders if they just give up and get used to it.

She glances over and meets his eyes. “I’m fiddlin’ with stuff just to fiddle with it.”

“So I don’t give up on being nervous. Good to know, I guess.”

“Nervousness is useful. Definitely reminds you that you’re on a deadline,” his older self counters, grinning. “How’s it going over there, Crowley?”

The Doctor returns his attention to the ginger-haired man with his gold eyes and altered pupils. Thinking of him as _Dad_ just isn’t flying in his head, mostly because he hasn’t had time to sit down and think it through. He’s not exactly surprised his mum would pull something like this, though. It also explains why he never had siblings—not that Mum was interested in having more kids. His aunts had always more than made up for that, anyway.

God, he misses them, even the most annoying of his cousins. The Doctor wants to get to know the Celestial who Mum chose as his father, and it’s so bloody frustrating that he can’t. It isn’t even just the time restriction; it’s the timeline. He could sit down with Anthony Crowley for the next six hours, but the moment he leaves, he’ll forget. His older self is the one who will remember. All things considered, it just seems proper to leave all of those questions to her. Why take all the guesswork out of it?

“Okay. I think the ships understand what I’m asking. They just don’t like it,” Crowley finally says. He’s resting his left hand on the older TARDIS; his right hand is on the Doctor’s TARDIS, which looks so scuffed compared to that shiny new paintjob on the other. Oh, well. She’ll get there eventually. “They think it’s unnatural, and they’re not wrong, but it’d be a fucking waste of time if they fell out of synch with us, wouldn’t it?”

“You win zero points for that pun,” Mickey comments.

“What’s it feel like when you freeze time?” the Doctor asks. He’s never experienced that. He’s slowed down his perception of time, sped it up, traveled through it backwards and forwards and even bloody sideways, but an absolute cessation of time? Not once. He glances at his older self and knows immediately that she hasn’t, either.

“You’re about to find out.” Crowley keeps one hand on both ships by resting his palm on one and letting his fingers stretch out to touch the other. “Don’t brace against it. That makes it worse.”

When Crowley closes his eyes, the Doctor feels an immediate build-up of power, of artron energy and Time itself. It almost feels like being swallowed by the vortex. Then Crowley slowly raises his right arm, his expression pinched in concentration.

If there is a wheel in the universe, a cog that is ever turning to mark the progression of time, it’s slowing down. The Doctor can sense it, vibration in the back of his teeth, bottom falling out of his stomach. He should still be going forward in time, but all he feels is inertia. Time itself grinds to a halt, the cog jammed.

“I feel like I was on a roller coaster that just came to a screeching halt!” his older self gasps. “Oh, that’s weird. That is so very, very weird.”

“There,” Crowley announces, dropping his arm back down to his side. “Normally don’t do it that way. Forty-five minutes. Don’t waste it, because I won’t be able to do that again for months.”

Everything is too still, too quiet, even with the chatter of voices from the others. It’s like suddenly going deaf. The Doctor looks to Rose, who has wisely decided that sitting down is the best thing in the world right now.

“M’all right,” Rose murmurs when she notices him looking. “Just weird, having less stuff in my head.”

“It’ll feel different in the TARDIS, if you need a breather. That’s why we’re building our singularity diverter inside it.”

Rose smiles. “Pocket dimension with its own sense of time, yeah?”

“Yeah.” The Doctor takes a breath that’s empty of the flow of time. “Right. Let’s get to it, then.”

“I really hate that we couldn’t space this out,” his older self grumbles. The Doctor nods; it wouldn’t feel any less odd, the absence of flowing Time, but it wouldn’t last as long. He’d even suggested it, stopping time every ten minutes per hour instead of doing it all at once. That would have given them fifty minutes, more than enough, but with every stop, they’d lose precious minutes preparing for it, moving things about, making certain everyone was in the right place at the right time. Crowley had argued that it was better to do it at once, right from the start, and since he was the one stopping Time, they could cope.

It doesn’t matter if the Doctor’s father is a Celestial or not. That familiar stubbornness is bloody _galling_. No wonder Rose calls him out on it so often.

His older self stops for a moment to look at Crowley. “You all right?”

Crowley’s brow is furrowed, his mouth partially open enough to reveal the sharpened points of his eye teeth. “Yeah, just…I feel like I’m overlooking something obvious. Don’t like that feeling. Usually by the time I figure out what it is, it’s already bitten me in the arse.”

“Don’t I know that one,” Jack comments as he opens the TARDIS doors and steps inside. “Oh, that’s so much better. Being a fixed point inside a fixed point sucks, lemme tell ya.”

“Is it about this?” the Doctor asks, tilting his head in the direction of his open TARDIS. “That feeling, I mean.”

Crowley scowls. “No. It’s Samael. He’s traversing that dimensional shift between Below and Earth, despite the fact that the Earth is several days out of synch. You can’t just cross a dimension like that and end up in the right place in time if time itself isn’t synched between them, not without a direct signal. Samael might understand how to travel in time, but that doesn’t mean he could do it on his own. You need a catalyst, or help, or one of your bloody timeships, especially with him bringing friends along for the ride. So how in the entire _fuck_ is he managing it?”

“I dunno what it could be,” the Doctor’s older self admits. “Maybe he figured out something new.”

“We know that Samael definitely has at least one ally up here already, since they tried to deface your TARDIS with that binding circle. Phone calls, maybe?” Jack asks, poking his head out of the TARDIS.

“No. Samael would be here already. That sort of transition only takes a few seconds. Oh, and we’d probably all be dead by now,” Crowley says.

“Thanks, Mister Optimism. You think it’s important?” Donna gives Crowley a nudge with her elbow. “How Samael is getting here, I mean.”

“Wouldn’t bother me if it wasn’t.” Crowley pushes off the edge of the other TARDIS to rejoin Aziraphale. “Have fun building your doohickey.”

“Come on, get moving,” River insists, coming along to push the Doctor towards his own TARDIS. “Forty-three minutes left, and we’re just hanging about!”

The Doctor exchanges grins with Rose before he allows himself to be pushed. He does rather like the bossy types.


	20. Loose Ends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In 1996, the Doctor reset Time and created a new timeline that stretched out from that point forward. For them, everything that happened in the 2000s still occurred.
> 
> For almost everyone else, it un-happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cheer-reading by @norcumi for this chapter, and credit to her for enduring my cackling.

“That felt different,” Israfil says after making certain his brother is sitting down in the back room, away from the shop’s brighter lights. Zaherael has been flinching more than usual, and Israfil knows that tell; he has the same one.

“Stopping time?” Zaherael rests his face in his hands. “That’s because I didn’t just…turn it off to turn it right back on again. It’s sort of pre-set, so I don’t undo it too soon.”

Aziraphale sits down right next to Zaherael, taking his hand without a second thought. Israfil is glad to see that. Sometimes one or both of the idiots hesitates too long over what should be so bloody simple. He tries to understand that they’re both rewriting over six thousand years of habit, but that just makes Israfil angry at his older siblings, which helps no one.

“Why would you need to pre-set how long you froze time?” Aziraphale asks. “Even when you’ve stopped it before, you know how long it’s been.”

Zaherael sighs. “Because we can’t afford for Time to damage or shatter, not right now. I’m the fallback point, Zira.”

Israfil feels his expression twist in frustration before he rubs his eyes. “Instead of doing damage to Time, any potential damage from freezing it that long will happen to you. That better not be fatal, you bloody idiot.”

“It won’t be.” Zaherael sounds certain, even if Israfil suspects that part of his certainty is pure spiteful stubbornness. “It just won’t be pleasant at the end—oh, and here come the nosy buggers.”

Israfil glances over his shoulder to find Michael, Saraquel, Ba‘al, and Gabriel crowding into the smaller space of the fire-lit back room. Lucy is lurking behind them, making no attempt to disguise the fact that she’ll listen to whatever is said. Adam, however, just squeezes in under Michael’s armored arm and shoves himself onto the sofa next to Aziraphale. Israfil gives him a brief smile. It’s always nice to have a wall of support, especially if his siblings are on the verge of asking potentially stupid questions.

“So, Crowley…you can…stop time,” Gabriel says.

Israfil has gained so much appreciation for why his brother grinds his teeth whenever they deal with Gabriel.

Zaherael rolls his eyes. “Excellent observation. Gold star, you.”

“I will ask something far more sensible.” Ba‘al’s expression is flat and unwelcoming, but Israfil knows them. They’re not angry; they’re trying to pretend they don’t find it amusing. “How _long_ have you had this ability?”

“No idea,” Zaherael answers, which isn’t much of a surprise. What _is_ surprising is that his brother elaborates. “I didn’t know I could do it until the first time a crocodile tried to eat me.”

“A crocodile?” Adam asks at once, perking up and grinning.

“There used to be a lot more crocodiles in the Nile,” Zaherael tells Adam. “I was just trying to stop one crocodile. Instead, I stopped everything.”

“So, our Creator gave you a specific ability and you did nothing with it,” Michael says dryly.

Zaherael glares at him. “No, she gave me a specific ability and then didn’t _tell me_ what I was capable of doing with it. Just like she gave you and Gabriel a pair of holy swords and didn’t tell you that you shouldn’t use them as an excuse to become a pair of pompous pricks. You figured that part out all by yourselves—look, I’ve already explained this today. I’m not explaining it again. If you still have working bloody brains, you’ll be able to figure it out for yourselves around about five in the morning. Now, please fuck off. You’ve got forty minutes to start painting blood on doors. I’d want to be taking advantage of that, if I were you. Less chance of walking into an irritable human that way.”

Saraquel grabs Michael and Gabriel when they both open their mouths. “Little brother is correct, idiots,” he says with a smile. Israfil notes the number of teeth Saraquel is baring and knows that his sibling is nearing the end of his patience. “Let’s go.”

“Just—be careful about painting the stupid rune,” Crowley says before they go. “The blood won’t dry or move unless you’re actively moving it yourself. If something is too thick and drips after time resumes, the rune won’t work.”

Adam is the one to take the advice seriously when their siblings merely look insulted. “Got it. Thin paint job, no dripping allowed.” He pauses. “Can someone make my bucket of blood maybe not smell so bad? Cause the occasional shimmer of gold is pretty, but they really, really stink.”

Saraquel grins and guides Adam over to the table and its unpleasant collection of filled buckets. “I’ll take care of that, Adam.”

“That’s us too, then,” Israfil says after their remaining siblings grudgingly depart. Gabriel is exceptionally miffed, but Michael is the one who’ll return with sensible questions. Israfil hopes Michael will remember to save those questions for _after_ Samael is dead. “Are you going to be all right?”

Crowley nods. “I’m going to wander off and listen to music, because I need to not be thinking until Time starts back up again.” In Israfil’s experience, electronics tend not to work when time is frozen, but Zaherael has no patience for what should and should not be. “Really, this isn’t going to be fatal or damaging or discorporating.” Zaherael directs the last sentence at Aziraphale, who doesn’t look assured. “Look, Zira. Wilf, Ba‘al, and Lucy are still going to be here. It’ll be fine.”

“Yes, but…you’re asking me to trust your continued well-being to _Lucifer_,” Aziraphale says, brow furrowed in concern. “No offence.”

Lucy smiles, flames burning merrily in her eyes. “Crowley is a Healer,” she says, as if that is all the explanation needed. “Besides, if there is a difficulty, there are two other Healers present aside from Israfil. They will be capable of assisting him, Principality.” Her smile becomes a smirk. “Even if they are two differing versions of the same person. Time Lords are such interesting beings.”

Crowley looks up at Lucy in surprise. “You’re recognizing them as a Healer without it being announced?”

“Of course. I’m not blind, unlike…certain other individuals.” Lucy buffs her blood red nails on her jacket sleeve. “Israfil. Aziraphale. I am here to stop Samael, and those with him who broke the rules of Hell I established long ago. I have no interest in waging war against Heaven because I violated the old rules and harmed a Healer. Samael is the one most interested in doing the latter, and that is where your concern should lie.”

Crowley gives Aziraphale a gentle shove. “Go. I can’t stand the idea of Egypt repeating itself in any way.”

Aziraphale gives up and nods, standing and straightening his coat. “Very well. Israfil?”

“Right. A demonic plague would be most unwelcome.” Israfil isn’t looking forward to painting a demon-repelling rune on an endless number of doors with his own blood, but needs must. “He’s right. The faster we move now, the sooner it’s done, and the safer all the local humans will be.”

  
* * * *

Crowley is an idiot. This is not news to him, but he probably could have come up with something better than jamming Time’s bloody wheel with a stick and hoping he can hold infinity together with his bare hands.

No. That’s the really frustrating part. There wasn’t a better way, isn’t a better way.

He didn’t just jam the wheel with a stick. He _is_ the bloody stick.

Good thing he’s always been flexible.

Crowley pulls out his mobile and alters Time with his hand, the mobile functioning again despite all else being frozen. He activates the music player and the five playlists he keeps on the mobile at all times: Depressing, Really Fucking Depressing, What The Fuck, Queen, and Johnny Cash. It’s another shot at the world ending, though, so Queen is a given.

The randomizer gives him “It’s a Kind of Magic.” Crowley rolls his eyes up at the ceiling. “Cute.”

For lack of anything better to do, he sits down at the table next to Wilf. “How’s things?”

Wilf is holding one of Torchwood’s not-Bluetooth devices to his ear, as if afraid it will fall off if he doesn’t. “It’s odd, things being so quiet,” Wilf says. “Mobiles aren’t working right now, but I suppose there isn’t anything out there moving about that would hurt anyone, is there?”

Crowley shakes his head. “Not a thing.”

Wilf puts the earpiece down. “I figure I’ll know when it’s time to start paying attention again, then. I’m glad you turned the music on, though. It’s a bit creepy hearing it be so quiet in here, too.”

Crowley looks around the shop. He’s distracted enough that he didn’t really notice. Without the flow of time, Aziraphale’s bookshop is rather silent. Spooky.

He’s not so fond of this sort of spooky. “Yeah, me too. You like Queen?”

Wilf grins. “I do. Used to drive my daughter, Sylvia, right up the wall, her ol’ dad being into the same sort of music his granddaughter liked. Them and…I think it was Bowie, for a bit, along with a few other blokes. A few ladies, too. Can’t remember their names, though. Donna might recall. I just liked us sharing something what made her happy. It helps that my girl has good taste.”

“Look, I already think Donna’s tolerable. You don’t have to keep trying to convince me.” Crowley glances around, spots a few bottles of wine that still have liquid in them, and snaps his fingers. Three of the bottles appear on the table. One of them is even half-full. “Drink?”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Wilf agrees gratefully. “It’s been a hell of a day. I'll be glad to see Saturday stick around this time.”

“Me, too.” Crowley looks over at Lucy and Ba‘al. “What do you want, an engraved invitation?”

“It’s polite to be asked,” Lucy counters, approaching and sitting down in one smooth, gliding motion. Ba‘al follows in silence; their sitting is not nearly as graceful, but Ba‘al doesn’t actually care about being graceful. They’re fine with being efficient.

Crowley summons up clean glasses for the four of them, enjoying the scent that hits the air when the fullest bottle is uncorked. “1947 really was such a good year,” he says. “For the grapes, at least.”

“World War II was over with, several peace treaties got signed…then we go and have the worst bloody winter of the twentieth century…” Wilf chuckles. “The grapes were the lucky ones, I think.”

“The Dead Sea Scrolls were found,” Lucy says, sipping at her wine. “What fun those have been since their discovery.”

“Official beginning of the Cold War,” Ba‘al adds.

Crowley points at them with his glass. “The Cold War was a pain in the _arse_.” He thinks about it. “Remember the bread riots in France? Those were fun.”

“Greek military takeover of the government,” Lucy counters.

“Famine also had an excellent year,” Ba‘al says. “The smug bastard.”

Crowley snorts. “Boring. Reinstating Israel by dividing Palestine tops all of that easily, _and_ no one’s forgotten it, because no one’s stopped complaining about it.”

“Thought you didn’t like hurting people,” Wilf says, a note of curiosity in his voice. He isn’t quite judging, but Crowley can hear how easily Wilf could get there.

Crowley shrugs it off; what’s done is done, and that job had been assigned, not one of his own terrible ideas. “Chaos is fun, but the point of it wasn’t to start a war, or for Palestine to remain unrecognized. Humanity took care of that themselves and_ I can’t believe _we’re sitting here, having a prick-waving contest over who screwed over humanity the worst in 1947.”

“Excuse me,” Ba‘al mutters irritably. “Besides, the divide of India and Pakistan has had comparative long-term side effects.”

“True,” Crowley says, granting Ba‘al that point. “Flag-waving instead of prick-waving, then. Or whatever you want to be waving about.” Ba‘al gives him an appreciative glance for his corrected terminology.

“Old habits are so easy to slip into, I suppose.” Lucy examines the wine in her glass. “I recognize this band, but not the song. What is it?”

“It’s called ‘Save me,’” Crowley answers, resisting the urge to skip the track. Then he’d be asked why, and he’s really not in the mood to tell anyone present that he deliberately blew a rather large hole in his chest with an antique pistol when listening to this track last September while trapped in Purgatory. The meaning of the song has been kind of fucked up for Crowley ever since. Sometimes he’s okay with it. Sometimes he has to keep himself from breaking whatever happens to be playing the song at the time. “Can we talk about something else?”

Wilf obliges, opening up a box on the table that is full of more of those sleek earpieces to explain that there is enough for everyone to have one. “Everyone will be sharing the same signal. Quick battle coordination,” Wilf says. “I’d loved to have had something like these back in the old days during World War II. Oh, and if all of you Celestial lot can do that signal-jumping bit with the telephone lines, it’s a mobile signal. Makes for quick escapes that way, right?”

“I’m fond of that idea.” Ba‘al examines one of the earpieces with slow deliberation. “I dislike being discorporated. Twice was enough.”

Crowley refills his wine glass and glares at them. “I hate you.”

Ba‘al gives him a flat smile that doesn’t hide their derisive humor. “How many times have you been discorporated by now?”

“Including today?” Crowley leans back in his chair, trying to remember numbers over his loud awareness of that jammed wheel. “Dunno anymore. Probably would need to bribe Dagon in order to find out. Maybe check the Library Upstairs, but I can’t remember if they keep records of that sort of thing or not.” Dagon keeps the records solely for everyone Below to bet on the numbers. Crowley doesn’t really see Above doing the same unless it’s on the sly.

The next song to play via the randomizer is Queen’s “Made in Heaven.”

“_Made in heaven_

_I'm playing my role in history_

_Looking to find my goal_

_Taking in all this misery_

_But giving it all my soul_.”

Lucy is not a fan. “Are you doing that on purpose?”

“No.” Crowley glares at his mobile. “It’s a randomizer. Supposed to be, anyway.”

Even Ba‘al looks unconvinced. “Crowley.”

“Seriously, not my doing.” Crowley picks up his mobile and scrolls through the track list with his thumb. “Besides, the other playlists are worse.”

Lucy crosses her arms. “Prove it.”

Crowley eyes her, switches playlists, and queues up a specific song. “I warned you,” he says as “Angels Fall” begins to play.

“_When angels fall with broken wings_

_I can't give up, I can't give in_

_When all is lost and daylight ends_

_I'll carry you and we will live forever, for ever._”

“Point taken,” Lucy acknowledges, the fire in her eyes blazing bright and hot. “Please return it to Queen.”

“All right, I’ve got to ask, and I apologize if it’s rude.” Wilf tops off Lucy’s glass first, which Crowley thinks is probably a wise move. “Are you really Lucifer? Like, _the_ Lucifer?”

Lucy inclines her head. “The very same.”

“Hmph.” Wilf doesn’t make crosses with his fingers or start spouting nonsense. He just seems puzzled. “You’re quite nice for the Devil, then.”

“No. Polite,” Crowley corrects, before Wilf forgets the distinction that Israfil tried to point out…today? Months ago? Dammit, he can’t remember right now. “Polite and nice aren’t the same. Maybe you can find someone who’s doing both at once, but never forget they’re two different things.”

“Winning more flies to your side with honey than vinegar, then?” Wilf asks, and Lucy smiles. Then somehow the two of them are talking complex theology, Ba‘al is commenting on occasion, and Crowley is stuck wondering how the fuck this became his life. He decides to stay out of the theology and just focus on the music. The music is familiar; the music bloody well makes sense.

Crowley also thinks it’s sort of hilarious that the next random song to pop up is “I Want it All” while Lucy and Wilf are discussing her dominion of Hell. He leans over the table and rests his head on his crossed arms. It’s a demonstrated sign of weakness in front of Lucy and Ba‘al that would once have been unthinkable, but Crowley doesn’t have to care about that any longer. He listens to the music, instead. He knows every drumbeat, every lyric, every thrum and pause by heart.

The wheel is ticking endlessly. It can’t go forward, not jammed in place, but the momentum of it never ceases. It was never meant to cease.

Crowley squeezes his eyes shut. The wheel is getting louder.

It washes away everything else.

The ticking gets louder.

Louder.

“Anthony!”

Crowley opens his eyes and tries to sit up, but his body isn’t cooperating. “S’not Anthony,” he mumbles, not even certain who called his name.

“Well, you weren’t answering to Crowley,” Wilf retorts, looking ancient, fragile, and worried. “Crowley, son—look at your hands.”

Crowley shifts his head and looks at his left hand. There are lovely golden lines crossing his skin, just like fractured and broken pottery repaired with gold. He can’t remember the right word for it. Japanese or something. “It’s just a side effect.” The jammed wheel is so _fucking loud_. “S’fine.”

He tries to shut his eyes again to escape the noise, but Wilf won’t let him. “Now, now, none of that,” Wilf chides him. “I think you should be stayin’ awake right now. Keep your eyes on me. Or on Lucy; she’s got some distracting eyes.”

“Nrgh,” Crowley complains. He doesn’t have enough words to explain why he has zero interest in staring into the Morningstar’s eyes. He’d had enough of that millennia ago.

“All right, then. Something else,” Wilf insists. “Can’t be much longer ’til time starts up again.”

Crowley tries his best to shut out the loud blasted ticks of the wheel trying to break the stick, trying to break _him_. “How’d—how’d you meet the Doctor?”

Wilf smiles. “Oh, that’s a good choice, that is. It should’ve been at Donna’s first attempt at a wedding—and thank God for that falling apart, really—but I was ill. Taken down by pneumonia, and already old enough that the hospital wasn’t lettin’ me out of their sight for anything. Instead, I met the Doctor when he was…well.” Wilf gestures at Crowley.

Crowley nods. Wilf met the Doctor when the Doctor had Crowley’s face. Probably a wonder he didn’t get slapped by a geriatric, too.

“I was workin’ a newsstand at the time, back when I was spry enough.” Wilf chuckles. “Back when newspapers were still making a bit of a profit despite the internet. The Doctor turned up with a pretty young blonde on his arm—” Crowley smirks, unsurprised. “—and was wanting to know why the streets of London were so empty on Christmas Eve. I told him, what with alien invasions two Christmases in a row, we were all quite a bit paranoid. Everyone wasn’t about to go out and chance more people going zombie-like because they had a certain blood type, not to mention the bloody robots and trees trying to murder people.”

“You were outside, though.” Ba‘al sounds like they’re re-evaluating Wilf. “You did not fear.”

“Her Majesty the Queen stayed in the Palace, so I stayed in my newsstand. Wasn’t gonna let myself be pushed around by any of that nonsense back then, and definitely not doing it now.” Wilf smiles at Crowley. “I didn’t know it was the Doctor, not then, but it was certainly a surprise when he and his lady friend disappeared, right in front of me. That was my first brush with teleporting. Seemed inconvenient, really. Didn’t know it’d been him, the alien Donna’d told me about saving her on her cancelled wedding day, until that bit with the ATMOS nonsense.”

Crowley lets out a derisive noise. “Officials wanted me to install that omission system on my Bentley. They really didn’t like where I told ’em to shove it.”

Wilf nods. “The Doctor had the same face from when we met at the newsstand, so we recognized each other. Quite a coincidence, hey?”

“Probably not.” Lucy sounds intrigued. “There really is no such thing. The universe was designed for all things to have meaning, even if we don’t like it very much.”

Crowley closes his eyes again. Loud. Loud. Loud. Fucking loud.

It hurts, too, now that he’s paying attention. The cracks on his skin feel like fire. Holy fire, fire of creation, energy of the universe. Time. It wants out, it wants to be what it is, and he’s not letting it.

_Flexible_, Crowley thinks. _You have to be flexible. Give with it. Don’t fight. Bend. _Bows and longbows, their graceful curving wood, never snapping unless someone treated them wrong. Saplings held by their uppermost branch and pulled until they’re perfect arcs, touching the soil with branch and root. Bamboo crafted and molded into tunnels, turned into green doorways revealing ancient trails…

* * * *

Donna shades her eyes with her hand as the Doctor gleefully melts down a combination of every metal—except the Dalekanium—with a welding torch that is far too powerful to be Earth-made. “I am never, ever giving you matches.”

“You’re no fun!” the Doctor calls back cheerfully. “Besides, it’s being melted in a halkonite container. No chance of molten bits escaping!”

“She is in a _much_ better mood than the last version of the Doctor that I met,” River comments, striding by with another style of welding torch. “Not counting you, of course, sweetheart,” she says to the younger Doctor.

Bloke-Doctor grins at River. “Course not. What do you want to keep the dalekanium panels separated by? We can’t weld them together directly, not without risking it trying to convert our little device into the oddest Dalek in existence.”

Donna thinks it’s a good thing she didn’t meet this version of the Doctor first, because he is riding the border of actually being her type. Not quite there, thankfully, but oh, boy, it might’ve been awkward when she was younger.

Jack looks up from his circuitry, building the bits that will give them a means to control the diverter. He’s been using his vortex manipulator’s computer and Luke Smith (via mobile) as resources aside from his own brain. “Incredulitas Four would be a very _bad_ idea for that.”

“If we could just bloody re-shape the halkonite when she’s done being a pyromaniac...” Donna is starting to wonder if maybe having a forge about on the TARDIS would be useful, but maybe not.

“I’m just glad I still had the container,” Bloke-Doctor comments, holding a piece of a Dalek’s outer casing as he tries to figure out how to piece their diverter’s protective shell together.

“No idea what happened to my halkonite container! Things are still turning up in odd places.” The Doctor turns off her torch and yanks off the goggles. “There. The halkonite will keep that insulated at the proper temperature for a bit. Still need a mold, though, or we won’t have a dish. We’ll have a box. I mean, we could probably bounce a singularity with a box, but concave is so much easier to work with.”

“I’d stick with the molybdenum,” Donna finally suggests. “For the dalekanium, I mean. We’ve got enough of it left over, and you’re only torching a thin bead instead of…well…” She tilts her head in the direction of the halkonite container and its steaming contents. If there is any biological programming left in that Dalek casing, the molybdenum won’t conduct messages from piece to piece.

“That would work.” Bloke-Doctor picks up one of the conduit lines brought in and tears open the insulation with his fingertips. “And, handy, we already have it in wire form. Perfect for soldering!”

“Then it’s just building the frame from the rest of the Photovine steel, and off we go, I guess.” Jack frowns. “Hold on. Yeah, okay.” He snatches up the iPad and scribbles a note using his fingertip with a lot more accuracy than current touch-screens allow for. Donna wants one of those bloody things _yesterday_. “Got it. Thanks, Ianto. Put Luke back on, I need to pick his brain.”

“Tell me it’s a dish mold,” the Doctor says. “Because that lot won’t stay melted forever.”

“It’s a maybe, Doc. Ianto is working to confirm.” Jack scowls at the circuit board in his hands when it sparks at him. “Hey, mind your manners!”

One thing that stuck with Donna after Israfil and Crowley fixed her brain was her sense of Time. It’s not like a Time Lord’s at all, more like enhanced human, and she has to concentrate to even use it. Right now, it’s telling her that forty-three minutes have passed…and that they haven’t heard a peep from the others.

Donna is about to open her mouth and mention that fact when Lucy leans inside the TARDIS. She doesn’t actually set foot in it, and Donna notes that her grip on the ship is on the outside, not the inner doorway.

“Hallo!” Bloke-Doctor greets her, absolutely refusing to be bothered by Lucy. That’s better than Donna’s managing, at least. Donna is definitely managing better than Martha, who’d realized who Lucy is and promptly decided to mentally dive out of giving that any further thought whatsoever, at least for the moment.

Lucy barely acknowledges the greeting. “Time Lord. You may be needed.”

“Forty-three minutes thirty seconds.” The Doctor takes a breath and looks at her younger self.

Bloke-Doctor holds up the bit of Dalek casing. “I’ve got this. Go.”

“Right.” The Doctor abandons her tools on the TARDIS console and darts outside. Donna follows, curious, and immediately decides that she probably shouldn’t have.

“Oh. Oh, dear.” The Doctor is reaching out to touch Crowley but not quite getting there, her fingers hovering just above his shoulder. Somehow, he’s managed to fit all of his limbs onto that small chair, arms wrapped around his legs, his head jammed against his knees.

Wherever Donna can see skin is riddled with golden cracks. It looks like regeneration energy that really doesn’t know how to do its job.

“Crowley.” The Doctor winces when Crowley responds with a pained whimper. “Look. There’s only one minute left. Just let it go, it’s fine. We can work with it.”

“Can’t,” he whispers. Donna flinches; it feels like she just heard something snap next to her ear. Lucy looks surprisingly grim. Donna thinks Ba‘al is hiding genuine concern.

“He says it’s pre-set,” Granddad tells the Doctor in his I’m-Worried-For-You-Sweetheart voice. “I wasn’t so concerned until a couple of minutes ago.”

“Right.” The Doctor leans down next to Crowley. “Thirty seconds, that’s all that’s left. Can I touch you?”

The response is probably psychic, not a voice. Donna doesn’t hear anything, but the Doctor reaches out and wraps her arms around Crowley, closing her eyes. “Not long. Almost there. You won’t break. You’re too bloody stubborn for it.”

Time doesn’t resume with the same slowness that it stopped. It happens all at once, an outward wash of invisible energy strong enough to blow Donna’s hair back from her face. Pages in books flutter, papers go flying, and one of the empty wine bottles rolls off the table, bouncing along the floor before it rolls under a shelf.

Crowley slumps in the Doctor’s grip, letting out a gasping breath before he gulps in fresh air. “Bloody hell, never again,” he rasps. The gold cracks are fading quickly, and Donna can’t see any other bit of injury on his skin.

“That was too long, wasn’t it?” The Doctor phrases it as a question, but she glances at Donna as she asks. The answer is bleeding obvious.

“Bit, yeah,” Crowley admits. “Fuck, I need a nap.”

The Doctor bites her lip and then helps Crowley up from the chair. “Sofa again?”

“Nope. Right against the wall’s fine. Won’t make it to the sofa before I pass out.” Crowley proves his point by collapsing in that direction all at once. The Doctor barely manages to keep him from bashing his head against the wall. “Give me an hour,” Crowley mutters, and then he's out cold.

The Doctor takes a grim-eyed moment to reposition Crowley’s limbs into something that looks at least a bit more comfortable. Then she grabs the nearest book— “Eh, fourth edition Hamlet’s fine.” –and gently lifts Crowley’s head, sliding the book into place to act as the world’s most awkward pillow.

Donna finally lets herself sigh in relief. “Well, that was bloody terrifying.”

“Just a bit.” The Doctor stands up and nods at the others. “Thanks for telling us. He would…he would probably have been fine, but it wouldn’t have been any fun to finish that off alone.”

“You’re welcome,” Ba‘al replies. Lucy only nods. Donna knows there is probably a reason for that, given it was Lucy who warned them, but it probably involves politics and stupidity, and she doesn’t really need to complicate her life in that direction beyond being friends with twin ginger idiots and Aziraphale.

Donna checks her watch, glad she went with a lady’s digital model, and sets a timer for an hour. “I’ll wake him with a poker from the fireplace when it’s time.”

“Why a poker?” the Doctor asks. Donna gives Granddad a reassuring look before she follows the Doctor back into the TARDIS that Donna still loves best.

“It’s probably a PTSD thing,” Donna says quietly. “Crowley tends to bite if he’s woken by an unfamiliar hand, or even a familiar hand if he’s in an awkward spot. Israfil and Aziraphale _both_ warned me, so I’m takin’ it seriously. It’d be my luck he’d wake up with the wrong teeth an’ I’d be dealing with a trip to A&E for a snakebite.”

The Doctor pauses after stepping inside the TARDIS. “That would be kind of funny.”

“It would not!”

Jack greets their return with a wide grin. “Found you a satellite mold, Doctor. There’s just the unfortunate part about it needing to be, uh, borrowed.”

The Doctor glances around and then squeezes her eyes shut. “You sent River to fetch it, didn’t you?”

“Better her stealing something we need than taking a Celestial’s property without permission,” Jack responds, unconcerned. “At least it’s in a country who won’t take the theft as a declaration of war.”

“It’s good she’s not here, anyway. I need to mention it to you lot before she gets back.” The Doctor takes a deep breath. “We screwed up. Maybe.”

“Oh, God, what now?” Bloke-Doctor asks. Donna notices that there are already two Dalek casings welded together and approves. Maybe they’ll get done with time to spare.

No, that’s wishful thinking. It isn’t just the build. It’s the alignment once it’s set up outside, getting it right. None of them want to accidentally divert a black hole and have it form and eat something important.

The Doctor looks at Donna. “Donna, I’m not the only one who first met River in the Library.”

Donna opens her mouth and then clenches her jaw in frustrated realization. Then she shouts, “BOLLOCKS!” just for good measure. “You’re right. We were so bloody worried about _your_ face—”

“Yeah.” The Doctor hesitates. “Unless you think River was playing it up that day in the Library, her not recognizing you until you said your name.”

Donna closes her eyes and pulls up those memories. It’s a reminder that she still needs to have a chat with the Doctor about a side trip to the 51st century, but that’s later. Right now, she needs the Library, and staring into River’s face, looking at her eyes, hearing her voice.

“No,” Donna decides. “She didn’t know. She was too sympathetic about…well.” She points at her own head and wiggles her finger. “That mess. And here she hasn’t let it concern her a bit, even though this is technically a different timeline. Course, that could be why she hasn’t mentioned my brain not being melted. Maybe she’s assuming it didn’t happen because of the reset in 1996.”

“Maybe. Can’t take chances, though. I’ll discuss it with River when she gets back. Not the first time we’ve had to fuzz things up a bit, but…oh, bollocks, blimey, bilge rats, and bacon bits! No, wait, I like bacon, scratch that last part.” The Doctor picks up her goggles and frowns. “Timeline reset.”

“What about it?” Jack asks. “Aside from me still being grateful that you did it.”

The Doctor slowly shakes her head. “No idea. There’s something important about it, though. Crowley knowing time, I bet that’s what was botherin’ him. There’s something about the reset we’re overlooking.”

“Any clue as to what it is?” Bloke-Doctor asks, his eyes narrowed in concentration. Donna feels another gentle wash of Time pass her by as he reaches about, feeling for whatever might be the problem.

“I dunno.” The Doctor huffs an annoyed breath. “This was literally thousands of years ago for me. I don’t think I’m remembering everything proper, and I don’t have time to sit down and give it a good go of thinking it over. We’ve got to get this done.”

Bloke-Doctor frowns for a moment before nodding. “Right, then. Back to work.”

River pops back in, a very large piece of metal leaning against her side. She gives everyone’s expressions a quick look-see and raises an eyebrow. “Did I miss something interesting?”

* * * *

Wilf is a bit startled when the others start packing back into the shop before Crowley’s hour nap is done with. He glances over at the man in concern, but he hasn’t moved at all since the Doctor tried to make him a bit more comfortable as could be done on a wooden floor. Wilf suspects that even if one of the old bombs that came down during the Blitz struck Soho, Crowley would sleep right through it.

“You lot are done already?” he asks them, directing his question more towards Martha and Adam, since they came back first.

“They’re _really_ fast,” Adam says. “And since it was only one mile out in all directions from the shop, it wasn’t so bad.”

“I’m almost thinking it should be two miles, but the paranoia has to stop somewhere,” Martha adds. “Because then we’d be upping it to three, and four, and five, and we’re not going to be letting that lot get any further than Greek Street.”

Mickey holds up a purple bucket and brush, frowns, and goes to put it in the rubbish bin. “Damn right we’re not.”

“I just don’t see why the issue of freezing time should have remained a secret,” Wilf hears the big, American-sounding Celestial say. It’s difficult to keep his mouth shut, but he’ll give that one a right stern look once he’s in view.

Not that the bloke would likely notice. He seems a bit dim like that.

“I am only curious in terms of tactics,” the woman going by Michael insists. Wilf has to keep telling himself that Michael is a man on the inside, but he carries himself so ladylike, looks and actions, that it’s hard to keep in mind.

Israfil is a lot more sensible, Wilf thinks, and continues to prove it when he turns to the other Celestials. “You realize that some of you are still making a rather a rather foolish blunder in regards to my brother, yes?”

“I will admit that I don’t understand,” Gabriel allows, a faint scowl on his face. “We are family. There is no need for secrets—”

“Secrets.” Michael groans aloud. “The prophecy. Of course he’s not going to speak of it further!”

Wilf shakes his head. This is what he gets for napping earlier; he has no idea what sort of prophecy they’re all on about.

“Partly that, yes.” Israfil looks frustrated. “Think on it, you lot. Crowley told Mother’s prophecy and its two secrets to the rest of us, Time Lord included, but hasn’t said a word of it to you three, or to Lucy and Ba‘al. Why do you think that is?”

“This is me realizing I do not want to hear this conversation,” Lucy says as she walks away. Wilf doesn’t know what Celestial hearing is supposed to be like, but he suspects she really is trying not to overhear this part. It doesn’t escape Wilf’s notice that Ba‘al hasn’t left the others to it, and that Israfil isn’t suggesting Ba‘al leave.

God help him, he hates politics.

That leaves Israfil with four Celestials, Ba‘al included, along with Martha, Mickey, Adam, Aziraphale, and Rose. She’s the one who glances around at their faces and tugs on Mickey and Martha’s arms. “Let’s go make up some tea, yeah? I could really go for a cuppa right now.”

“Riiiight,” Mickey agrees slowly. "Tea. Right now. Grand thinking."

Rose winks at Wilf as she passes by with Martha and Mickey. He smiles; she’s a cheeky girl. He likes her.

Israfil looks in Wilf’s direction, his eyes darting down to Crowley before gazing at Wilf again. Wilf shrugs and nods. Crowley’s fine, but otherwise, he doesn’t know what really went on. Bit beyond his understanding, really, and Wilf is fine with that.

“Do you want me to tell them?” Saraquel asks Israfil, the lad raising both of his perfect blond eyebrows. Looks like a bloody Renaissance painting, he does. “I know you’ve been beating your head against the stone walls of their stubbornness since you become significantly less dead, Raphael.”

“Their lack of understanding our brother? Yes, please,” Israfil invites. “I’ve run out of ways of figuring out how to get our eldest siblings to figure this out for themselves.”

Once he has permission, Saraquel doesn’t waste any time at all. “First off, stop trying to make Crowley be Zaherael,” he says bluntly. “You can’t compete with millennia of habit just by being bull-headed about it. Second of all, the sooner you recognize that Crowley’s remaining anger towards you two stubborn idiots isn’t about Crowley at all, the less tetchy he’s going to be.”

Israfil’s quiet smile looks far more like a snarl. “Please note that Saraquel said _less tetchy_, not miraculously even-tempered.” Wilf thinks it good advice, but it doesn’t mean this lot will understand it.

“What is Crowley still angry about?” Michael asks when the big lout doesn’t say anything.

Israfil, Saraquel, Ba‘al, and Adam all point at Aziraphale. For his part, Aziraphale looks displeased to be the center of attention, but makes no attempt to deny it. Instead, he pulls out a chair and sits down at the table. Wilf sympathizes with that tired expression, even if Aziraphale doesn’t look old enough to have earned it.

Michael winces. “Ah. Yes. That would be an adequate reason. I did neglect a rather important step, didn’t I?”

Gabriel only frowns. “What step?”

Israfil might be on the verge of slapping someone. “Are you joking right now?”

“He is not.” Ba‘al seems to be enjoying Gabriel’s nonsense. “The last six thousand years suddenly make so much sense.”

“Gabriel. Brother. Idiot whom I do really love.” Saraquel sighs and rests his hand on Gabriel’s shoulder. “Crowley loves my favorite Principality over there. You treated said Principality like rubbish, insulted him, labeled Aziraphale a traitor, and attempted to execute him without a trial. You’re fortunate that Crowley is a Healer, or else I think he would have turned you into an ashy smear on the floor rather than ever speak to you again.”

Gabriel gapes like one of those oversized goldfish that Wilf’s seen being sold in pet shops. “Well, I—I was aware that they were fraternizing—er, that they were, well, friends, but…an archangel? In love with a soft Principality like _him_?”

Ba‘al makes a sudden, choked noise and flees into the back room before the sound becomes mocking laughter. Wilf has no idea what that’s about, but Israfil doesn’t look surprised by Ba‘al’s reaction. Inside joke, maybe.

Meanwhile, Saraquel lets out a frustrated sigh. Michael winces as if hearing Gabriel’s words was painful.

It’s the unhappy flush on Aziraphale’s face that riles Wilf’s temper, even if he’s doing his best to stay out of it. He’s seen those signs before, most of them on his beloved Donna’s face. Someone’s said those sort of words to Aziraphale in the past, with that same sort of thoughtlessness. Probably the same thoughtless idiot who’s standing there still gawping.

“Honestly, I know you have a brain, Gabriel,” Saraquel says. “You might want to dig it up from wherever you buried it and shove it back into your skull where it belongs.”

Adam suddenly steps forward, frowning at Gabriel. “What’s that s’posed to mean, then? Soft?”

“Young Anti—er, young man— Adam—it means…” Gabriel glances around, realizes he has zero support, and plows ahead anyway. “The Principality Aziraphale is meant to be a warrior for God, so he can’t be…unfit.”

Adam looks at Aziraphale, who is sitting taut and perfectly upright. That’s military posture if Wilf’s ever seen it. “What’s unfit s’posed to mean, anyway? Aziraphale and Crowley, they were the only ones standin’ right next to me when my not-dad decided to pop out of the ground like a gigantic movie Cthulhu-thing,” he says, “an’ Aziraphale had a flaming sword, an’ he was afraid, but he still stayed with me. Him and Crowley both, and Crowley was _mental_, cause he just had a tyre iron.” Adam blinks up at Gabriel. “Don’t remember seein’ _you_ there doin’ that.”

_Good God, I really need to find out about more of this nonsense_, Wilf thinks. That goes a fair bit beyond Celestials, demons, and Heaven and Hell being actual places that exist. Lucy doesn't seem the type to act out that sort of nonsense, either.

“Yes, well, it was no longer my affair or under my jurisdiction—” Gabriel protests.

Adam ignores him. “Besides, what’ve you got ’gainst soft, anyways? Lots of things are soft, an’ they’re great. Kittens, my dog, plush animals, blankets, marshmallows, my mum’s hands—”

“Young man,” Gabriel tries again, but Adam isn’t finished.

“—Candy floss, my jacket, baby ducks, grass, bubbles, and Pepper’s sister was all soft when she was still a baby, and the wind in your face can be soft, an’ so is fog, and squishy pastries! I mean, all sorts of grand things are soft.” Adam reaches out and prods Gabriel in the arm. “Even that suit you’re wearing, that’s soft. An’ all those things are soft for a reason, right? Because they’re supposed to be that way. Sharp and hard isn’t for everything. My bed would be terrible if it wasn’t soft. So maybe it isn’t _soft_ you’re really all that worried ’bout. Maybe…”

Adam’s expression crumples into bewildered dismay. Wilf feels like he needs to brace himself for what comes next. “Oh. You…it isn’t ’bout soft at all. You’re afraid things won’t ever be good ’nuff to keep ’em safe. Everything was all great last time, but it wasn’t good enough, so it’s gotta be harder and sharper or else it’ll just be terrible again—”

“Adam.” Israfil holds up his hand, requesting silence. Adam bites his lip to stem the flow of words. “Don’t worry; you did nothing wrong. Well…” Israfil looks at the slightly concussed expression on Gabriel’s face. It’s not nearly as satisfying as Wilf thought it would be. “Maybe you were a bit too swift on the revelations there, but you are not wrong.”

Michael takes Gabriel by the arm, shaking her—his—head. “I saw wine bottles scattered around this shop. I’m going to find one and convince Gabriel to indulge before he recovers enough to realize he’s polluting his favorite Celestial temple. I think he needs it.”

“I think he needs to remember that we all used to bloody well drink, and get over himself already,” Saraquel adds. He takes Gabriel’s other arm and leads their unresisting brother towards the rear of the shop. Michael snatches up a corked bottle on the way.

“I…I didn’t actually mean to break him,” Adam mumbles.

“No, Adam. That was, I think, long overdue.” Israfil pinches the bridge of his nose. Wilf sympathizes completely. It’s not enough that they’re trying to stop the world from ending. This nonsense always seems to come with some ridiculous bit of drama attached. “I’ve been trying to lead Gabriel to that realization for many months now, and I was making almost no progress. If anything, I’m thanking you for, er, breaking him. It will ultimately help Gabriel to be less of a complete prick.”

“Adam.” Adam turns around to find Aziraphale regarding him with a faint, fond smile. Wilf likes that a lot better than his too-tense military bearing. “You compared me to a number of things of which I am quite fond. Thank you.”

Adam walks over and wraps his arms around Aziraphale in a sudden hug. “Good things an’ good people are s’posed to be soft.”

“Yes.” Aziraphale sounds thoughtful. “Yes, I rather suppose they are.”

* * * *

Crowley isn’t certain if he blames time or the pain of holding it back. Maybe Time itself slapped him upside the head before he fell asleep, knocking just the right pieces loose.

Either way, he wakes up with a swift inhalation of breath and sits bolt upright as those pieces slide into place. _Oh, fuck._

“Crowley?” Aziraphale gives him a concerned look over his ridiculous spectacles. “Are you all right?”

“No,” Crowley whispers. “Oh, _fuck_!” He scrambles to his feet, makes it about a yard before hitting the floor again, and scrambles back to his feet without giving a damn about dignity. “DOCTOR!”

He nearly collides with Donna in the TARDIS’s open doorway, but that’s fine. Crowley pushes her back inside; she needs to be here, too.

“Crowley?” The Doctor rips off her goggles again and turns off the torch. “Dad?”

Crowley puts his hand on his chest, trying to remind his heart that no, it really isn’t necessary to pound like that. “I know what I was overlooking. What we were _all_ overlooking.”

“That doesn’t sound good.” Jack drops what he’s doing and stands up, dusting off his hands. “What are we overlooking?”

“The fucking timeline reset. 1996.” Crowley hates that he’s still gasping out words. This corporation really needs to get its shit together. “Donna, you said it yourself, the day we met. You only did those things with the Doctor on the first run. Not the second.”

“I did a lot of things before that little timeline reset,” Donna reminds him. “Please be more bloody specific, sunshine.”

“It’s how Samael is crossing the fucking void between Hell and Earth, even with time being out of synch between them,” Crowley says. “It’s how that species bloody travels. They’re teleporters, but they’re not doing it at random. They’re following threads, following—”

“Ley lines. Stuff.” The Doctor’s eyes go wide and horrified. “Oh, no. No, I didn’t do it again. I never came back. I didn’t even think about it!”

“Do _what_?” the younger Doctor asks, looking at everyone in confusion. Even River shrugs her lack of understanding.

Donna slaps her hand over her mouth. “But that was twelve years ago—oh, but I never—I didn’t go to work for them this time. Just had a bad feeling about the whole thing and stayed away, got a different job!”

“Someone. Please. Explain!” the younger Doctor demands, hints of the older Doctor’s storm already appearing in his eyes.

Crowley glances at him. “A cosmic infestation that occurred before the beginning of time. Planet eaters trapped in the Earth's core.”

The Doctor’s stunned brown eyes meet Crowley’s panicked gaze. “The Racnoss,” she whispers. “Samael allied himself with the Racnoss.”

“And they’ve had an extra twelve years to breed.” Crowley swallows hard. “We are so fucked.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I *might* be putting this story on hiatus for a month while I work on another necessary project. That was the plan yesterday, anyway. Today I woke up to my brain screaming at me to finish writing this first. Soooo if it becomes a certainty, I'll edit this message. If more chapters of Serpent and Storm start turning up, you'll know that my brain won that argument.


	21. Three's a Crowd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Recognizing that one of them has to go to the Racnoss nest, to negotiate, to try to stop them, to find out if the Racnoss are still hiding in the same place? That’s the easy part.
> 
> Figuring out which of them it should be is slightly more complicated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last week I was doing my it-is-dark and therefore not roasting nightime walk, listening to music, because that's usually when my brain drifts and plot falls out.
> 
> When the author is suddenly shouting WTF IS THIS EXIT: PURSUED BY BEAR shit??? ...Yeahh. The plot went sideways while flipping me off with both hands.
> 
> ...But it'll be fun!

Saturday, 23rd May 2020, 1:05 a.m.

Recognizing that one of them has to go to the Racnoss nest, to negotiate, to try to stop them, to find out if the Racnoss are still hiding in the same place? That’s the easy part.

Figuring out which of them it should be is slightly more complicated.

“Look, there’s the two of us already here,” the Doctor’s younger self points out. “I don’t have the memories of dealing with the Racnoss, but you do.”

“And so do my next three faces,” the Doctor says. “Two of us have to be here, and at least one of us has to be there. The trouble is figuring out which one.” She pulls a face. “Why do things always have to be so complicated? At least King James trying to dunk me as a witch was _simple_!”

“It has to be the two of you who stay here.” Crowley is leaning against the TARDIS railing, his eyes locked onto the green light emitting from the central console. He’s not wearing his sunglasses inside, possibly because the TARDIS’s interior (this one and her current configuration) are both darker than the bookshop.

“All right, I’ll bite,” her younger self says. “Why’s that?”

Crowley blinks once and looks away from the console. “It’s about stability. You,” he nods his head at her younger self, “you’re riding the wind of the Oncoming Storm. You’re not letting it control you. You’re not letting it rule you.”

The Doctor’s younger self tilts his head back and forth, looking a bit nervy. “Some days better than others, but I suppose I am, yeah.”

“And you.” Crowley looks at her with undisguised affection in his golden eyes. If Crowley looked at her other self that same way, it’d definitely explain the nervousness. “You control that storm. You bring it up when you need it and put it away when you don’t. That storm, the emotions behind it—that is _powerful_. It’s the sort of power that can so easily slip off to the side, lose itself to chaos. What we’re going to do against Samael requires absolute control. So: can any of your next three faces claim the same stability the two of you already have?”

“I haven’t met that next face yet,” River says after a quiet moment. “But the two after that? I love you dearly, sweetie, but no. Absolutely not.”

“Thanks for your confidence in my mental stability.” The Doctor sighs and ruffles up her hair. “Even though it’s accurate. Bugger. Crowley’s right. It has to be one of the other three of us going after the Racnoss.”

“And me,” Donna insists. “I was there the first time. The more experience, the better our chances of stopping a bunch of alien spiders before they try to eat Soho.”

“Can we finish the build without Donna?” Jack asks, arms crossed as he regards the components of their singularity diverter. “It’s three hours and forty-five minutes until go-time, and we lose River at four a.m.”

The Doctor studies what’s left to be done, considering the alignment calculations still waiting for them outside. She’s never actually built a singularity diverter before, but there’s a first time for everything. “If the spot gets marked for where we need to place this…”

“We’ve got it. Might ride the edge of our time limit, but we can do this.” Her younger self is absolutely certain, and it helps the Doctor recognize her own certainty. “We’ve got Jack, that young Luke fellow, and our own brains. We can figure out how to align the dish, no trouble.”

“And we can call Malcolm if we need a bit of a hint. All right.” The Doctor paces around the console once, aware that River, Donna, Jack, herself, and Crowley are all watching. “For both of my last faces, there is only one safe spot for each of them I could phone in and not disrupt something important. Problem is, _both_ of them are in the same boat I am. I don’t remember enough of the Racnoss events because it’s been over two thousand years, not counting the stupid Confession Dial. The face before that is dealing with the thousand-year mark because of bloody Trenzalore. So…there’s only one choice.”

Donna groans aloud. “All the effort we’ve put in to keep him _off_ the map, and that’s who we’re stuck with, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I much preferred it when things were still Mister-Not-Appearing-For-This-Crisis.” The Doctor blows out a sigh that stirs the fringe up from her forehead. “That’s going to be so very awkward. On the bright side, you’ll finally get the chance to slap the right person.”

Donna’s expression turns gleeful. “You should have led with that. That definitely makes it worth the confusion.”

“Then your next face is…” Crowley growls under his breath. “How’re you going to explain that, then?”

The Doctor glances at her other self and then holds up her hand, wiggling her fingers. “Same way I did last time. No choice, really. I can’t leave anything out, not when we’ve just had _exit: pursued by a bear_ dropped in our lap because I forgot about the bloody Racnoss.”

“It was a really cute bear,” Crowley mutters. “All right. Just…not in the bookshop. Another one of these massive bloody ships isn’t going to fit in here, dimensional engineering or not. A block away down Old Compton would be better.”

“And I think maybe it should be just us for the welcoming committee,” her younger self says, gesturing at himself, the Doctor, and Donna. “Faster it’s done, better chance we have of not dealing with planet-eating spiders.”

“No, River,” the Doctor orders, giving her the sternest glare she can muster right now. “Spoilers, sweetie.”

“I can behave myself,” River protests, biting her lip in acknowledgement of the fact that she’d already been planning not to do so. “Besides, Jack and I can keep working while the three of you run off to play.” She takes a moment to wipe the sweat from her forehead. “After I pop off, I’m going to take _such_ a long shower.”

“Tease,” Jack responds, grinning when River smirks at him.

“And that’s me leaving. I’ve got another problem to deal with,” Crowley says, exiting the TARDIS in a few long-legged strides.

Bugger, but the Doctor misses being tall!

The Doctor rolls her eyes, pulls out her mobile, and sets the timeframe she needs firmly in her mind. It’s not ideal, but there really isn’t a better time. It all has to occur after Donna’s loss, the loss of _everyone_. She was so busy, filling those years after Christmas 2009 with every single thing she could, trying to avoid the inevitable change weighing down her hearts.

With that sense of time in place, she rings up her own telephone number and passes the mobile over to her younger self. “Think maybe you’d better field this one.”

“Fair enough.” He takes the mobile and presses it to his ear as he walks to the other side of the console room, leaning against one of the great corals as he waits for an answer.

“River.”

River gives the Doctor a curious look and saunters over. “I already said I wouldn’t peek, darling.”

“I know. This is a different problem.” The Doctor gestures at Donna. “You weren’t surprised to see her here. Not in the slightest. Why?”

“She’s in the history books; I knew her story in association with you regarding a certain situation with twenty-seven planets. Given that you rebooted time in 1996 and that situation didn’t happen again, I thought you’d simply met her a second time without any bad history in the way—” River halts in realization. “Artron energy. Oh. It’s not that at all, is it?”

“No.” The Doctor bounces on her toes. “The next time you see Donna, it’s the first time she’s meeting you…and she’s certain you hadn’t met her yet. I was so focused on the other difficulty that I totally forgot, and fixed point, and—”

River puts a finger over the Doctor’s lips, smiling. “I understand, love. Am I losing the past few hours, or are we just fuzzing things up a bit?”

The Doctor swallows. “I can’t take this from you. It means too much. Fuzzing.”

River only nods in acceptance. “Right before I leave, then. I won’t wander off without making certain of it. Promise.” Then she turns her head to smile at Donna. “Is it worth it?”

Donna’s smile is entirely genuine. “You’re an interesting nutter, and I got to watch the Doctor squirm. It’s worth it.”

“And the bit where you’re calling the gangly one _Dad_?” River asks, grinning.

“That one you can keep. Just, uh…don’t mention it to me.”

“Yes, it really is that kind of problem!” The Doctor’s younger self is suddenly yelling. “Bloody hell, when have we _ever_ done this deliberately?”

The Doctor winces. “I’m, er, only about a month out from regenerating into the face you know best.”

“Madman in a box?” River asks, and the Doctor nods.

On the other side of the control room, her younger self is resting his hand over his eyes. “No, listen, that’s _why_ I gave you the coordinates. I know our sense of Time is buggered right now! Y’know, you’re reminding me of how much of a horse’s arse I can be, and it’s not helping. Just come help save the world, you stubborn wanker.” He lowers the mobile and disconnects the call, scowling. “What the hell is our problem?”

“It’s after the Queen Elizabeth bit,” the Doctor admits. “And I’m being followed around by everyone else’s bloody precognition about when I’m going to die—well, regenerate. Unfortunately, they’re right.”

“So, you’re a hot mess.” Donna rubs her hands together. “I know just how to deal with that.”

* * * *

Donna waits with her arms crossed, almost wishing she’d put on a coat. It’s May in London, but things turned chill after midnight. She doesn’t think it’s necessarily the weather making it that way, especially since it gets colder the further they walk down Old Compton, away from Aziraphale’s shop.

“You sure you want to do this?” the Doctor asks. She’s standing next to Donna, and Bloke-Doctor is next to her. “And not for the slapping bit. I mean, y’know. Lance.”

“I didn’t meet Lance this time and really, I’m long over the fact that he tried to feed me to alien spiders.” Donna grins as the unmistakable sound of the TARDIS begins to filter in. “Hearing that three times in one day—it’s just like the old days.”

“Oh, I can definitely see why I like you,” Bloke Doctor says as the TARDIS finishes materializing. Donna hadn’t realized how close Bloke-Doctor’s TARDIS was to Alien Boy’s. A few less scuffs, maybe, but the paint is still weathered. The TARDIS, both of the older ones, they both feel so _tired_ to Donna. It’s the getting-better sort of tired, at least.

The Doctor nudges Donna. “Have at it. In two thousand years, I’m going to think it really funny.”

Donna nods, squares up her shoulders, and marches up to the TARDIS just as the right-side door opens inward. “All right, all right, why am I being called a wanker this time—OW!”

Donna scowls at him. the palm of her hand stinging a bit. He’s got the same ridiculous hair and sideburns—Crowley hadn’t bothered with those, but his hair was the same bloody bird’s nest disaster. Same ridiculous face and billowing coat. The suit is different, darker blue without the hint of metallic threads, with a white button-down instead of something colorful.

His tie is the same Gallifreyan pattern of circles, though. So is the sheer, wide-eyed shock in the Doctor’s brown eyes as he rubs the side of his face in disbelief.

“Donna?”

“That,” Donna declares, “was for you reaching into my brain and putting up walls after I bloody well told you not to!”

“But—”

“AND,” Donna steamrolls right over his stammering, “because you broke your bleedin’ promise! You were supposed to have someone with you, all the time, because sometimes you need someone to stop you. I_ told_ you that, and you promised you’d do it. Then I nearly go and brain-melt myself, and you _didn’t _keep anyone with you, and don’t you bother trying to deny it, because I got those facts straight from your horse’s arse bloody _mouth_, and look what sort of mess you’ve gotten yourself into, Dumbo!”

Her Doctor, her idiot, is still staring at her like his brain decided to blue-screen like an old computer. “What? But you’re not—”

“And this…” Donna steps forward and hugs him even as the Donna’s Doctor is throwing his arms into the air to avoid another slap, “is for building those walls. Means I’m still hanging about able to do this.”

“And no, I’m not,” Donna answers him when the idiot finally hugs her back. “I’m not a bleeding meta-crisis anymore. Long story, we don’t have time, and oh, yeah, the other two versions of you are interestin’ sorts.”

Donna’s Doctor makes a series of unintelligible sounds before he manages words again. “_Two?_”

Donna steps back and grins. “Yeah. I feel like I’m introducing Thing One and Thing Two.”

“Oi, I am most definitely Thing One,” Bloke-Doctor says.

“How does that make sense?” the Doctor retorts. “You’re the youngest of us!”

“Exactly!”

Donna’s Doctor stares at her for a moment longer before regarding…well, himself and herself. Themself?

Ugh. Bloody Time Lords.

“Okay, first, most important question.” Donna’s Doctor takes a breath. “When did we go and decide to be a woman?”

“Oh, that’s a long way from where you are right now,” the Doctor answers cheerfully. “Totally not planned, really inconvenient dealing with the occasional misogyny, but I sort of like it!”

“Right. Okay.” Donna’s Doctor rubs his chin. “And then there’s previous me…” He tilts his head. “Mother’s Day escape run while everyone else was off being domestic?”

Bloke-Doctor nods. “Good guess. Or good memory, if that’s starting to filter in.”

“A bit, yeah.” Donna’s Doctor finally steps out of the TARDIS, closing the door behind him. “So, I’ve had a really odd sort of week, and this isn’t even the first time this year that I’ve been dealing with two of myself—oh, and I just recalled that right now, that’s convenient, except for the part where I’m going to forget it again when we’re done here—”

“Focus, you,” Donna reminds him.

“Okay! Yes. Focusing.” Donna’s Doctor nods. “What did we break?”

“We didn’t break it. We_ fixed_ it,” the Doctor replies, and then her brow furrows. “Well. It’s a fix and a break because it fixed quite a lot, but it left one really important thing unbroken, and that’s about to come ’round and possibly eat the planet. That’s aside from the impending attack of the big demon beastie you met on an impossible prison planet just above a black hole. Oh, and he has friends, but mostly it’s him. And the unbroken thing.”

“She means that one of you reset the timeline in 1996,” Donna clarifies. It takes serious willpower not to snort laughter at the open-mouthed expression on Alien Boy’s face.

“Anything else?” Doctor’s Donna asks, spreading his arms. “I mean, might as well go for broke, here.”

“And that is why I jumped right to the psychic tell-all,” the Doctor says to Bloke-Doctor.

Bloke-Doctor rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I know, I get the point. Stop being smug about it.”

“Then I’d stop being me, and that wouldn’t be any fun.”

“Right, yes, that’s wonderful,” Donna’s Doctor interrupts. “Please skip to the psychic tell-all for me, then, because I don’t even know where to begin to start with _any _of this!”

The Doctor rubs her hands together. “Great!” She strides forward and then pauses in the midst of lifting her hands. “Just to warn you? It’s a lot.”

“As long as this all starts making sense, I’ll be happy,” Donna’s Doctor replies.

“All right.” The Doctor rests her fingertips along her other self’s temples. They both close their eyes; he winces and staggers back a few seconds later, jaw hanging open again.

Donna’s Doctor swallows. “Okay. So, I was wrong. Everything makes a lot more sense, but I’m not happy about it.”

“Look, I tried to keep it relevant, but it just doesn’t work!”

“Yeah, I got that.” Donna’s Doctor huffs out a breath and leans against the corner of the TARDIS. “Summarizing, then. The giant demon thing in the pit above the black hole is named Samael, and tossing him into the black hole didn’t kill him because he’s incorporeal: check. Celestials are real, and Samael is a demonic one, or Fallen: check. Samael is incredibly powerful, wants revenge, is already on his way here, and you lot are already in the midst of dealing with him: also check. Celestials being historically comparative to Biblical scripture is actually not much of a surprise. And: I’ve got this face right now because this is what our Dad looks like. Check, except for the part where that is _really_ not the sort of surprise I wanted tossed into my head right now!”

“Well, it’s not exactly the sort of thing that should be left out right now, not when he’s right in the middle of it all,” the Doctor says apologetically. “It’s not like this isn’t going to sort itself out!”

Donna’s Doctor pulls one of his favorite disgruntled faces. “I can’t believe I’m saying this for the second time in two years, but I’m too sober for this.”

“So it’s not just the face, it’s the temperament. And the haircut. I’m _never_ getting that haircut again, by the way. No wonder you slapped me, Donna.”

Donna looks behind the two Doctors to see Crowley leaning against the parked van behind them. He wasn’t there a moment ago, but Crowley is really good at not being noticed, the cheat. “I did warn you, sunshine.”

Crowley offers her a wide smirk. “How’s it feel to finally slap the right man?”

“Not nearly as satisfying as I’d hoped,” Donna admits. “Right now it feels like I went and kicked a puppy.”

“I thought you were going to stay out of this,” the Doctor says to Crowley.

Crowley shrugs and saunters over to join the other two Doctors. “I was, but then I got curious. Also, I’m distracting River from giving into the temptation to sneak out here and meet someone a bit too soon, which, gotta say? I’m still _really_ not used to being on that side of things.”

“River’s here?” Donna’s Doctor squeezes his eyes shut, pinches the bridge of his nose, and then spins around in an overly dramatic circle. “Just—oi! Why do you—no, I know that answer, but—no, wait, got that, too—and—oh, bloody hell!” He finally gives up and stalks forward to stare at Crowley. “The most frustrating thing right now, aside from the bloody Racnoss not being dead, is the fact that _you’re bloody ginger!_”

Crowley steps forward in his usual I Have No Bleeding Joints manner until he and Donna’s Doctor are facing each other. The latter straightens up, revealing that they’re not just sharing the same face, but the same height. Same level of skinny, too, but Crowley’s outfit highlights it. Donna’s Doctor is usually putting on layers that hide how much of a twig he really is.

Donna’s Doctor glances Crowley up and down. “Blimey, that’s weird.”

“I’ve got an identical twin brother,” Crowley drawls, enjoying the flash of belated realization on Donna’s Doctor’s face. “You get used to it.” Then Crowley tilts his head. “What’s with the ginger thing, anyway? Is it some weird genetic imperative with you lot? Hair dye has existed for a long fucking time, you know.”

“That’s just not the same!”

Donna cracks up laughing at the protest coming from three different Doctors. “They’re too concerned about the drapes matching the carpet, I think.”

Crowley snorts. “Please. Humans have been doing weird things to their body hair since they first figured out they had it.”

Donna’s Doctor pulls another expression, this one his Everyone Else is Ridiculous face. “Sunglasses at night? I mean, not one to judge that, me, but I didn’t quite catch the reason for it. Too much of a rush fitting in all the bits about the Racnoss and Samael, and I don’t even think that was all the bits.”

Crowley pulls his sunglasses down to perch on the end of his nose, revealing his golden eyes. Donna rather likes the fact that the literally glow in the dark. Not like a flashlight beam or a reflected cat’s eye, but they definitely shine. “Vertical pupils with reptilian traits: perfect night vision in full color, but there’s a few downsides. Bright light first thing in the morning is such a pain in the arse. Underactive tear ducts aren’t so fun, either. Right now, I’m just trying to keep the bloody dust out of my eyes.”

“Why isn’t _that _genetic?” Donna’s Doctor asks curiously. “I mean, that’d be dead useful.”

“Dunno if it’s not.” Crowley’s grin is definitely part-tease, part-challenge. “But my eyes weren’t this way when I was younger. Long story, though, and literally no time for sharing.” He shoves his glasses back into place and steps back a few paces.

“Right. Yes. The Racnoss.” The Doctor takes over before things get any further out of hand. It’s definitely too late to stop it from being weird. “Himself and myself have to stay here. You and Donna are the ones with the most recent memory of dealing with them. Long story short, we have no idea if the Racnoss are still hanging about in the center of the planet, but we_ do_ know that they allied with Samael. They gave him a travel visa; he probably told them they could eat the Earth after he was done with it. Not gonna happen, not on my watch.”

“You didn’t mention they were in the center of the Earth. How d’you know that?” Crowley asks curiously.

“Oh. Uh—we went back and checked, Donna and I,” Donna’s Doctor says. “Four point six billion years ago, one of their powerless ships drifted into the debris field that would eventually become this planet. It was large enough to act as the Earth’s gravitational center so all the pieces would start coming together.”

“Four point six billion years.” Crowley cringes. “Fuck, never say that again. I don’t actually like contemplating my age—wait. Wait. Powerless ship? Dormant, you mean, yeah?”

“It was full of either eggs or very young Racnoss, but yeah. They were out of Huon particles to fuel it, so it had already gone dormant,” the Doctor says. “Why?”

“Aldebaran,” Crowley murmurs. “The nest from Aldebaran that Israfil and Gabriel dealt with before the Racnoss could fucking well eat that entire sector. That ship must have come from Aldebaran. There weren’t any nests closer to this solar system—and who the _hell_ was on duty that day, anyway? Who missed the fact that a fucking Racnoss ship buried itself in this planet’s core? Because I am going to find out, and I’m going to hand them their arse!”

“Arse-kicking later. Focus,” the Doctor reminds Crowley, who glares at her. “We’re on a time limit. In…” She hurriedly checks her wristwatch, “three hours and thirty-eight minutes, Samael and his friends are going to burst through Greek Street and make the RTF very unhappy. The two of you have until 5:00 a.m. Greenwich Summer Time to find the Racnoss and stop them from joining Samael’s party. It’s definitely time to get a shift on!”

Donna watches her idiot Doctor close his eyes for a moment. He takes a breath, shoulders easing down, going perfectly still. Then he opens his eyes, settled and probably ready to make something explode. Again. “Twelve years ago, H.C. Clements was a former Torchwood property. What did Torchwood do with them if the timeline was reset?”

“Canary Wharf didn’t reset. Too strong of an imprint on time,” the Doctor responds. “So, Jack still ended up holding the reins, and this time around, had a much better idea of where trouble spots were going to be. H.C. Clements was known to be connected to the bloody Racnoss ship in the sky on Christmas Eve 2007. Torchwood Cardiff claimed the property back from Clements and shut down the company two years before that, all operations suspended. The building hasn’t been touched since then.”

“So we could be walking into a building full of hungry alien spiders. Good to know,” Donna says.

The Doctor shrugs. “Not like that would be the first time that’s happened in London this decade, just happened to be a different species.”

“Got it.” Donna’s Doctor looks at her. “If I tried to leave you here, you’d strangle me, wouldn’t you?”

Donna raises both eyebrows. “What do you think?”

“Yeah, not in the mood to be strangled,” he says, holding up his watch. “1:30 a.m. Three hours, thirty minutes. My watch is set. Donna, tell me you already have a mobile and way to contact people.”

Donna holds up her mobile and wiggles it back and forth. “Way ahead of you. Let’s go already!”

“Right. Yeah.” Donna’s Doctor pushes his hand through his hair and shifts awkwardly in place. “Okay. We’ll call you when we find them. Or not find them. Whichever.” He pushes the TARDIS door back open and all but bolts inside.

Donna sighs. “Oh, he’s twitchier than usual. This should be fun. See you lot soon. Don’t get blown up or eaten in the meantime, right?”

The Doctor waves. “Same to you.” Crowley throws her a mocking little salute that is far more affectionate than it has any right to be.

Donna smiles, nods, steps into the TARDIS, shuts the door, and darts up to the central console. “Ready when you are.”

Her Doctor looks up at her, and for the first time, he smiles, wide and a bit bashful and entirely pleased. It lights up his eyes, drives away the shadows, and makes him look happy in a way Donna hasn’t seen since they got to meet Agatha Christie. “Can we maybe talk about the meta-crisis thing on the way? The part where you’re not one anymore, I mean.”

Donna nods and takes a firm grip on the console. Then, instinct takes over and she reaches out, flipping the first lever. “Don’t see why not.”

His grin is now almost impossibly wide. “All right, then. Allons-y?”

Donna grins back. “Allons-y, Space Boy.”

* * * *

Aziraphale is not panicking. Truly, he isn’t. He’s too blasted _busy _to panic. He shifts books by Miracle (magic seems to be a more comfortable word for their guests) instead of checking his shelves and stacks by hand. He’s never liked doing so, but there isn’t time to go about things in his preferred manner.

He hadn’t yet been created when the Racnoss were an active threat to the new and expanding universe. He’d quite honestly been glad to have been created later; the horror stories from the older angels were enough to chill the blood of even the most hardened cherubic warrior.

Aziraphale listened to all of the tales anyway, of course. Now that he thinks on it, those tales might have a great deal to do with the reason why, for millennia, he preferred never to sleep. Crowley spent literal centuries, most of them recent, convincing Aziraphale that sleep is useful, not merely slothful. Crowley was right, yes, but that forgotten bit of Aziraphale’s own early history definitely explains his early reluctance.

What Aziraphale knows right now can be quite easily summarized:

  * The Racnoss are a threat on par with Samael.
  * They did not _need_ another threat on pair with Samael.
  * The Racnoss are, for want of a better word, planet-eaters.
  * Michael is terrified of the Racnoss, which is not the least bit reassuring.
  * The Racnoss are capable of tapping into the Earth’s ley lines.
  * Every single bloody warding circle Aziraphale knows how to construct is, therefore, utterly useless, as they’re all powered by the inherit magic of the Earth. One could use oneself as a power source, of course…if one was in a hurry to turn themselves into a pile of truly dead ashes.

That’s why he isn’t panicking. He’s a bit too preoccupied with outrage.

Crowley finds him flipping madly through a recently re-acquired book on occult magics. Aziraphale acknowledges his presence with a nod, still turning pages, until Crowley’s long, graceful fingers come down to rest over Aziraphale’s hands. “Zira.”

“I know!” Aziraphale waits for Crowley to move his hands before he slams the book shut. “If it’s Earth-based magic, the Racnoss have given Samael the means to corrupt it. If it’s occult-based magic, Samael himself could corrupt it. We can’t attach it to Heaven because if—God forbid—we fail, the warding circle would give Samael direct access to Heaven, which endangers too many people. I don’t know what to do, Crowley!”

Crowley plucks the book from Aziraphale, puts it on the closest shelf, and takes both of Aziraphale’s hands in his own. For a moment, all Crowley does is hold Aziraphale’s hands, the faint gold of his eyes barely visible through his sunglasses as his thumbs caress Aziraphale’s skin. Then Crowley brings Aziraphale’s hands to his face and kisses each of Aziraphale’s fingers, blessing knuckles that are already red and sore from sharp edges of paper slicing into his skin.

“Breathe, angel,” Crowley murmurs. “We’ll think of something; we always do. What’s the quote? _There exists more on Earth and in Heaven than dreamt of by your philosophies_?”

“Close.” Aziraphale shakes his head, smiling despite his mood. “_There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy_. You hate “Hamlet,’ Crowley.”

“I don’t completely hate it. Burbage was just a complete bloody _bore_ of an actor,” Crowley replies.

“But you complimented him!” Aziraphale protests. “During one of the early renditions of the play, before you…well. Before you happened to encourage its success. Before Edinburgh.” _And,_ he thinks with distaste,_ that bloody horse ride._

Crowley lowers his glasses so that Aziraphale can see the teasing glint in his eyes. “My words were for _you_, you oblivious angel. You didn’t even notice who I was looking at when I said them. Also, Will Shakespeare is a bloody thief and I’ve still not forgiven him for that.”

“Well, you didn’t tell Shakespeare _not_ to use those lines. He did, at least, put them to good use.”

Crowley snorts. “Mine was better,” he mutters. “We need to think beyond our three typical realms for drawing power, Aziraphale.”

Aziraphale frowns at Crowley’s mention of ‘better’ but decides he will pursue that later. “The anti-zone the Doctor mentioned, perhaps?”

Crowley shakes his head. “Still occult. I wouldn’t want to try to siphon energy from the Undivided Consciousness, either. That could literally end existence.”

“Hmm. No. We already have enough things trying to end existence as it is,” Aziraphale agrees. “The moon isn’t a possibility, given that it’s a lifeless surface…or at least lifeless enough to not be of much use.” He chews on his bottom lip. “Another planet in this solar system, perhaps?”

“Maybe.” Crowley seems to be thinking about it. “Definitely not the sun, though. It’s too volatile, and I really don’t like the idea of Samael draining it to death several billion years too early.”

Aziraphale makes a displeased sound at the very idea. “Space itself, then?” If anyone would know the answer to that, it would be one of the archangels who helped create the stars.

“Space is a void. Any energy we could pick up on that might be floating around in that void would be unreliable, and I want to live,” Crowley answers. “And there’s also the fact that the coordinates would be in constant flux—shit, that definitely rules out using other planets. Everything in the universe is always moving. Not unless you know how to adjust for that constant movement?”

“Not off-hand, no, and I don’t believe I have time to learn. Bother.”

Crowley sighs. “That word is not nearly expressive enough for this, angel.”

“Says the former demon,” Aziraphale says, his eyes following the lines of mathematical equations that climb his walls until he is looking at the three-ring origination point for the Summoning that retrieved Crowley from wherever Tenebris had hidden them both in Hell’s depths. Then he looks down at the arrival circles on the floor. “Seven heptagrams, not circles, you said. Yes?”

“Seven is a powerful number. Also, I’m involved, the seventh of the First Seven. I don’t know if my standing there would strengthen the wards, but I’m not ignoring it, either.” Crowley gives him an intrigued look. “What are you thinking?”

“I don’t know what the power source would be yet, but…” Aziraphale feels excitement start to override his anger at this entire situation. “Not simple wards, Crowley. A teleportation system, a converted one. We teleport the energy in via the perception filter and heptagrams that protect the _doohickey_, turn it into an origination point. Then, _then_ we can alter the warding heptagrams to become the destination point. That would provide a continuous renewal of the wards, and with the magical mask of that perception filter in place, Samael and his allies wouldn’t know where to find the power source for the blood wards!”

“Which means they wouldn’t be able to destroy it prematurely.” Crowley grins at him. “I apologize for every single time I’ve called you stupid.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Each and every time you did so, I was most definitely choosing to do something to deserve it,” Aziraphale counters. “You think it will work?”

“It’s bloody perfect, is what it is.” Crowley seizes Aziraphale up in a hug, kisses him, and then releases him before Aziraphale has the chance to really appreciate the moment. “Figure out what those teleport rings and wards need to say. I’ll find us an energy source, angel.”

“One that isn’t yourself,” Aziraphale feels the need to mention. He doesn’t want to see a repeat of Purgatory, even if it turned out for the best.

Crowley merely nods. “Of course not. I still don’t want to die.”

Now that Aziraphale has a goal that he can successfully accomplish, fetches fresh paper, and reluctantly abandons a quill—for now—in place of one of his favorite fountain pens. He sets to work sketching out exactly what is needed. The runes are easy enough when he isn’t frustrating himself with the fruitless task of finding a safe source of energy. He might not have an origin point yet, but he knows where the energy it generates has to go, what its purpose is, and how to keep that outward flow to the warding circle constant.

Crowley startles him when he suddenly reappears in front of Aziraphale a few minutes later. Aziraphale squeaks before he rests his hand on his chest. “Crowley, I know our corporations can’t have heart attacks, but I think you nearly gave me one!”

“Sorry.” Crowley takes off his glasses, looking one part perplexed, two parts mad, and one part inspired. It’s not exactly an expression that Aziraphale usually associates with positive outcomes. “Angel. I have a really stupid idea.”

Aziraphale listens to Crowley, feeling the furrow on his brow grow with each passing moment. “All right. I have questions.”

Crowley grins. “I love questions.”

“I know, my dear.” Aziraphale taps his pen against his fingers. “Is there energy in this place?”

“Tons. Ambient. It has to have energy or else it wouldn’t work.”

“Mm.” Aziraphale frowns. “Would tapping into this energy source drain it?”

“It’s a transition point. I don’t think it _can_ be drained. It’s an ever-changing constant.”

That’s certainly encouraging. “All right. Then I suppose I’m now asking how to write out coordinates for a place of transition that doesn’t really exist in any meaningful sense of the word.”

“Yeah, I didn’t get that far,” Crowley admits. “I have no idea.”

Aziraphale sighs. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”

Crowley reaches upwards until the air ripples around his fingertips. “The other part is making certain you’re linking to the right part of it all. This here,” he wiggles his fingers, sending out further ripples that distort Aziraphale’s view of the ceiling, “isn’t the transition point between Earth and Heaven. This is just the buffer.”

“Buffer?” Aziraphale watches Crowley, who is technically not at the right height to be able to manipulate any part of the transition plane between here and Above. “I didn’t realize a buffer existed.”

Crowley pulls a face. “We didn’t have one at first. We didn’t know it was needed until the first experiments with transitioning from Above to a physical plane of existence were attempted. Discovered the hard way that without a buffer, crashing into that transition plane is like smashing through concrete.” Crowley rubs the bridge of his nose. “I really don’t think my face has ever forgiven me for that one.”

Aziraphale smiles. “I had rather wondered why Israfil’s nose is not quite as pronounced as yours.”

“Shut up.” Crowley scowls and blushes as he continues speaking. “So: buffers. There are four layers of energy on each side of the transition point between the physical plane of Earth and Heaven. It’s cushioned just enough to give you full awareness of what you’ve done without breaking yourself on it.”

Crowley reaches to grasp Aziraphale’s free hand and lifts it until Aziraphale’s fingers are sinking into that odd sensation of sliding reality. “It’s right… there. That’s the transition point.”

Aziraphale’s eyes widen. “Oh. Without the buffers—yes, that does feel different.” He explores that definitive, near-physical sensation, which is very unlike the buffer that surrounds it.

“Any ideas?” Crowley asks.

“Not coordinates,” Aziraphale decides after he lowers his hand. “Description. There is no rule that says I can’t dictate an origin point by using the right sort of words.”

“That’s my angel. Tell me what you need me to do.”

Aziraphale nods. He can do this; he excels at this, else his bookshop would have attracted far more occult attention since its construction. “Go outside and mark the seven heptagrams of the warding circle that will shelter the three of you, and then do the same for the spot where the diverter for the singularity device will need to be placed. Use…” Aziraphale winces. He isn’t squeamish; it’s the idea of self-injury that bothers him. “Use your blood for both, if you can do so without suffering any ill effects. When you can gain the attention of your offspring, they’ll both need to need to contribute at least a drop of blood to every marked heptagram so the wards will recognize them.”

“Offspring,” Crowley repeats. His expression doesn’t change, but Aziraphale has known Crowley for over six thousand years, and can read the tension in his shoulders.

“Well, there are currently three of the same person running around London,” Aziraphale snips. “I didn’t know what other word would be appropriate!”

“Good point.” The tension diminishes, but doesn’t depart entirely. “Why does it need to be the blood of both? They’re the same person. Sort of.”

“Time Lord biology. I asked Saraquel, since he is the one responsible for crafting that cluster of stars and planets,” Aziraphale explains. “The Doctor is the same person on the incorporeal level. It’s similar to Michael’s current situation; his current corporation is most certainly not a match for his incorporeal self. That, and wards are tricky. Better to be cautious than not. I would hate for the wards to protect only one of them, or neither of them, because I wasn’t specific enough.” Aziraphale pauses as something occurs to him. “Oh, and I’ll need their current ages for today’s date as well, month, day, and year, in order to add in another layer of recognition. Your name is so much simpler, my dear.”

“I’ll let them know.” Crowley takes off again, this time yelling for Jack to join him. Aziraphale smiles and wonders if Captain Harkness will ever think to request that Crowley cease referring to him as Brothel Boy.

* * * *

“You didn’t need me for this,” Jack says, watching Crowley paint seven-sided shapes onto the asphalt. He’d be weirded out by the blood, but honestly, he’s still seen weirder. Besides, Celestial blood has the occasional flash of gold in it that almost feels like reassurance. It’s really fucked up, but Jack’s learned to take what he can get.

“Nope, I didn’t,” Crowley admits, not looking up from his work.

“Then why did you ask me to come out here?”

“This will only take a moment. I wanted to ask you a question without the others hearing it.” Crowley finishes the third oversized heptagram and stands up long enough to stretch his back. “How long would it take to evacuate London?”

The only thing that keeps Jack from freezing in place is the amount of shit he’s gotten his people into and out of over the years, world-ending and city-ending both. “It depends. It shouldn’t be necessary, though. We’re dealing with Samael and his friends, and the other Doctors—man, that’s getting out of hand—sent Doctor number three off with Donna to deal with the Racnoss.”

“It’s not Samael and a bunch of idiot demons I’m worried about—well, actually, yeah, still worried about dealing with Samael.” Crowley starts painting a fourth heptagram. “Samael still has to die, and the others need to be sent back Downstairs or made to be very dead. I’m more concerned about the Racnoss.”

“Which are being taken care of,” Jack repeats. He’s never dealt with the Racnoss himself. All he knows of the Racnoss came from bedtime stories and legends, ones even more sparse than the available knowledge about Celestials—which is really not much, despite Celestials being a known species in the 51st century.

“_If_ they can stop the Racnoss, yes.”

Jack notes the tension in Crowley’s jaw. It is and it isn’t the same tell that the other Doctor sharing that face had, but Jack can still read it. “I’ve never dealt with Racnoss. How tough are these things?”

Crowley’s tongue darts out long enough to touch one of his upper canines. “Very.”

“Specifics would be nice,” Jack presses.

“I saw them consume an entire star system once.” Crowley takes off his sunglasses and looks up at Jack, his expression tight and angry. “We didn’t find the nest in time to stop them, and by then there were far more Racnoss than there were of us.

“The Racnoss consumed everything. The only thing we could do was quarantine off an entire galaxy and let the Racnoss eat themselves into extinction. They are voracious, they have no mercy, and if there are more of them than there are of you, you’re pretty much fucked. So I’m asking you again: how long would it take to evacuate London?”

Jack grimaces. “Depends on the range of the evacuation you have in mind.”

“Everything from here to the outer boundary of the entire circle of the M25.”

“Fuck.” Jack has to draw in a breath before he lets time and training take over. “The M25.”

“Yep.”

“I thought you just meant central London. That’s all of London County, Crowley!”

Crowley shoves his glasses back onto his face. “I know.”

“If it turns out not to be necessary, that sort of evacuation is going to piss off a _lot_ of people.”

“Who gives a fuck?” Crowley retorts in exasperation. “If nothing happens, everyone who evacuates London can enjoy the minor inconvenience of still being alive to whinge about it.” Crowley glances up at Jack again. “But: if the Racnoss are coming up through the Earth behind Samael and his allies, and emerge here in Soho, central London, just down the way from bloody Buckingham Palace…”

Shit. Shit, fuck, dammit! Jack doesn’t want anything like another Dalek invasion. No 456 incident. Not another fucking Miracle Day. One of the best things about the timeline reset in 1996 is that those events _didn’t happen again_. He isn’t certain what stopped the Daleks and their planet theft, or the 456, but Miracle Day—Jack would be in so much fucking trouble if Her Majesty ever found out exactly what Jack did to ensure that particular unending hell never came to pass. Humanity didn’t need to live through that again. It wasn’t even supposed to happen the first time around.

“Understood,” Jack finally says. “It would take a lot longer than we have to get everyone out.”

“If it helps, I don’t think the Racnoss are going to be crawling out of the ground when Samael does. They’re smart; they’ll wait for Samael to leave. Or die.” Crowley dips the paintbrush in that ludicrous plastic kid’s pail again. “I don’t know how much extra time that gives you. I can’t even promise you that it’s necessary, but I’m not Torchwood.”

“No, but this is your dominion,” Jack counters. He can tell he’s surprised Crowley when the Celestial swears and has to wipe away and repaint part of the current heptagram. “That means it’s not my call. It’s yours, and you think we should do it.”

Crowley doesn’t respond, but then, he doesn’t need to. He’s already made his opinion clear.

“Right.” Jack clenches his jaw.

Three hours isn’t long enough. Not even close.


	22. Protocol One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ten and Donna, together again...right where they started from. Déjà vu , anyone?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cheer-reading credit for @norcumii, who is always awesome, and @morgynleri
> 
> (Also, a much-requested character turns up in this chapter. You're welcome!)

Saturday, 23rd May 2020, 1:35 a.m.

H.C. Clements hadn’t even bothered to pack up when they left the building behind. Except for the lack of personal items amongst the cubicles, the entire office space looks exactly the same as it did when the Doctor first saw it on Christmas Eve 2007. Well, that and the lack of lighting and power. He can’t even hear electricity thrumming in the walls.

“It’s like the office version of a ghost town.”

“Don’t you go inviting ghosts to this party.” Donna shines her mobile about, which has a brilliant bright white LED torchlight on the back. It always amazes him, the speed at which humans technology leaps forward. He’d forgotten how very versatile mobiles would become after a decade or two. They aren’t quite at the pinnacle before necessity starts to divide certain functions again, but oh, they’re definitely on their way.

“There’s no such things as ghosts,” the Doctor says.

“Not supposed to be any such things as angels and demons, either, and I’ve been hanging about with both of late. Not adding ghosts on top of it all right now, thanks.”

The Doctor frowns. “Celestials.”

“Whatever makes you happier, sunshine.” Donna lowers her mobile after a full sweep. “No alien spider webs, at least, and definitely no power. So much for using the elevator.”

“I remember where the stairs are.” The Doctor hesitates, reminding himself that Donna is ten years older. Humans and their joints do weird things. “You’re all right for stairs?”

“I’m fifty-two years old, not decrepit,” Donna retorts. “God, that would’ve been my desk, right over there. This is weird.”

“A bit, yeah.” The Doctor glances at her while she shines the mobile’s torchlight up at the ceiling to give them better light for the entire space. “You don’t look fifty-two.”

“And whose fault is that?” Donna asks, but she’s smiling. “You shared a bit more than brains with me, Doctor.”

“Details, then. Distract me.” The Doctor leads the way across the office space, slotting a mental floorplan into place that’s at least five years old. “Right now it’s like part of my brain is here, and the rest of my brain is scrambling to interpret a lot of memories that might as well be computer code until they’re fully translated.” His older self had _not_ been joking when she said that there was a lot to show him. Worse, she’d set it up in order of importance, boxes that are opening one at a time instead of letting him grasp hold all at once.

There is probably a very good reason for that. The Doctor hopes it’s a nice reason.

“You usually distract yourself just fine,” Donna mutters, “but all right. So, Thursday before the time loop began, I met twin Celestial healers. Angels. Extra-dimensional beings. Whatever you want to call them, they’re all accurate. I met Israfil first, by accident, up in Knightsbridge. Those walls in my head you put into place were taking damage because of my emotional state—long story, not right now—and when I saw Israfil’s face, looking pretty much just like _your_ face, the walls fell down and kicked off the meta-crisis again.”

“They shouldn’t have been able to fix it. Not saying I’m not glad, mind. It’s just…” The Doctor trails off, swallowing hard. “I looked, you know? Telepaths and the like, ones I knew I could trust not to muck about with either of us. I didn’t want—leaving it like that—and there was nothing. I didn’t find anything, couldn’t think of anything. The most I ever heard was that the sheer amount of power it would take to undo that sort of biological entwinement would just be…”

“Phenomenal?” Donna grins. “They don’t have limitless power or anything. Crowley passed out on the floor afterwards, and Israfil decked out on the sofa. It’s just… it’s a natural ability, the twins and healing. Israfil prefers the physical stuff, which is my brain not melting into goo. Crowley prefers the mental healing, which is my brain no longer stuck with all of your memories and that complete awareness of time and space—which I’m fine with, by the way. There are things I’m really fine with not knowing about you, Doctor.”

“I’m not offended. _I_ don’t even like my memories most of the time,” the Doctor replies. “After pulling enough energy and awareness and whatnot out of your head to shut down the meta-crisis, what was left behind?”

“Bit of maths. Okay, no, a _lot_ of maths. Culture from different points in history for several different species, human and Gallifreyan included. Looming is _weird_, by the way. I can get a grasp on Time in terms of what time it is where I’m standing, but it’s not automatic anymore. I have to really focus on it. The twins are certain I’m going to live at least a solid two centuries unless I muck it up and get myself killed. Shared a bit of that extra life with granddad, because it was sitting at two-fifty, and really, I don’t need to be hanging about on this planet that long, and…he was getting pretty close to leaving me. Wasn’t ready for that, not yet.”

“What did you give him?” the Doctor asks curiously. He’s rather fond of Wilf, and has a feeling this face of his is going to be seeing him again. No idea why, nothing in the memory download to hint at it, but the awareness is there.

“About two decades, with Israfil helping me to get it right.” Donna sniffs once and then pretends her eyes weren’t going glassy with tears. “He’s able to get around on his own again, an’ I’m glad. He hated being stuck in a bed, and…he didn’t want to leave me on my lonesome any more than I wanted him leaving without me.”

The Doctor reaches out and grips Donna’s hand. “D’you know how many people in your situation would’ve just kept all that extra life for themselves? You’re amazing, Donna.”

“Shut it, you,” she says, but smiles a bit. “Oh, wait, you need the rest of it. Science is a bit easier, especially physics. Like, I can almost understand the way Time Lord dimensional engineering works, but not quite. I probably have a few extra languages lurking about in my head, too, but I mostly haven’t gone poking about. Haven’t really had time, what with time loops, bloody Weeping Angels, Samael, and having my entire view of the universe upended on its backside. _Again_.”

“Weeping Angels?” He’s suddenly a lot less concerned about the Racnoss and more worried about those bloody bastards sneaking up behind them.

“Yeah, but they’ve already been dealt with,” Donna assures him. “Trust me, they’re not even on the planet anymore, and they’re not likely to come back anytime soon. Crowley scared the pants off the lot of them.”

“Riiiiight.” The Doctor nods; he doesn’t have that information/memory yet. Scaring a threat to the Earth off the planet? That _definitely_ sounds like something he would do, which does not help with the weird at all.

“You all right, by the way?” Donna asks. “Because you’re doing that eyebrow thing you do when you’re hurt and don’t want to admit it.”

It hasn’t been that long, and yet it really has, hasn’t it? The Doctor isn’t used to people _knowing_ him that well anymore. “I’m fine. Mostly fine. It’s just that doing this twice in one year is giving me such a headache.”

“Doing_ what _twice in a year?”

“This! Me!” the Doctor exclaims. “Being in the same place and time as two others of myself. I mean, the first time through meant we did something I never thought possible, but now I’m at it again with a different set of me, and—oh, hey, I found the stairwell door.”

“See? Distracted yourself just fine. They didn’t even bother to lock up,” Donna notes when the Doctor turns the handle and pushes the stairwell door open. “S’that a good sign, a bad sign, or just general sloppiness?”

The Doctor sniffs the air. “I don’t smell anything out of place. Still a reassuring lack of spider webs, too.”

“Let’s go with someone being lazy about locking up behind them, then.”

The Doctor shrugs and starts traipsing down the stairs, their footsteps echoing like muffled thunderclaps. “Donna, if we do find the Racnoss down here again…then what?”

Donna sounds amused. “You’re askin’ me?”

“You always had good ideas.” _Except maybe the slapping me bit_, the Doctor thinks, but he isn’t stupid enough say that aloud. Besides, he can’t exactly argue with her reasons.

“I suppose our options are to ask them to stop, cut off their access to the rest of London if they won’t, and try not to die?” Donna suggests. “Especially that last part. I haven’t forgotten that their arms are big ol’ razor blades.”

The Doctor has to use his sonic screwdriver on the security panel at the very bottom of the stairwell before the door will open. “Welcome back to the worst-hidden secret floor ever.”

Donna shines her mobile’s torch down the tunnel. “Wonder if they still have the Segways.”

“Oh, that would be fun. Probably not, though. With the power cut to the entire building, their batteries would have run flat a long time ago.”

“Rude, making us walk all the way down.” Donna reaches out and flips a switch on the wall, revealing cheap incandescent bulbs running down the length of the tunnel as they light up with an orange-yellow glow. “You were saying something about the power being out?”

“Secret floor, secret electrical grid. Smarter than siphoning off the original business building, I suppose.” The Doctor glances at the corner hopefully, but someone packed up the Segways and made off with them. That means they’ll be walking…though to be honest, after what went down on Mars not so long ago, he isn’t all that disappointed.

Donna pockets her mobile. “I only saw one Racnoss the last time. What are we dealing with if there are more? There isn’t a lot in my head about them other than _dangerous_. Then there’s what the Celestials know about them.”

“What do the Celestials know about them, then?” the Doctor asks. Celestial is definitely easier on his brain right now; fits better with the idea of extra-dimensional beings. He doesn’t have time for any sort of meltdown, and his mental moving parts are buckling under the strain of the last few years as it is.

He’s trying hard not to think about the ginger sharing his face—no, now he has two of them. The Doctor has an image of this Israfil in his head. Definitely an identical twin to Crowley, but Israfil has normal-looking blue eyes instead of slitted reptilian gold…oh! They’re both shapeshifters, to a certain extent. That makes sense. There is a hint of something beneath that, a reason why Crowley prefers his eyes to look inhuman, but the Doctor can’t quite grasp it.

“To the Celestials, the Racnoss are very hard to get rid of planet-killers, ones who tried to infest all the dark parts of the galactic void before the universe expanded to fill in the gaps. They started dying off without Huon particles; the surviving Racnoss hid in the gasses and dust after the expansion, trying to eat any bit of life that formed in order to survive. You heard that bit where they tried to eat Aldebaran, but I think something else must’ve happened, too, because Michael is shit-scared of the things.”

“Maybe the Racnoss almost ate them,” the Doctor comments, wondering idly which Celestial is Michael. The memory boxes aren’t all open yet, but he’s catching up. The mental box labeled _Dardanus: Not While Distracted!_ is hard to resist, but he puts it aside. The next one he opens gives him basic details on Michael and the other Celestials.

Michael and Gabriel are the oldest living things in the universe aside from the universe herself, unless he counts the universe as a separate entity from the distinct consciousness that created Celestials in the first place. There’s also another distinct galactic consciousness that formed at the same time as the Celestial-making one, but they’re bound in a separate universe so that nothing implodes…and they’re a frog. Right, then.

Oh, hello. Michael is the woman in the armor—man, actually—who tried to kill the Doctor and Rose when they decided to take a gander at ancient Bethlehem in the springtime. That might be awkward later.

Maybe the Doctor needs to stop opening boxes for now, because _what the bloody hell is he supposed to do with all of this information?_

“Racnoss,” Donna prods in reminder.

“Racnoss!” The Doctor returns his attention to their current problem. The Racnoss make more sense than _frog consciousness_. “They’re all red in color, half-humanoid, half-spider, though the Empress is usually the largest. Makes her easy to spot in a crowd.” The Doctor runs his hand along the tunnel wall as they walk, surprised when it comes away stone dry. This close to the Thames, there should have been more moisture in the air, and there isn’t. Odd. “The black colorations on their skin vary, but the females are all larger than the males. There aren’t very many males born per Racnoss generation, but…”

“But, what?” Donna encourages. “Keep talking, you.”

“Oh, it’s nothing. It’s just that all the males can fly.”

Donna glares at him. “Are we back to needing to work on your definition of ‘nothing’?”

The Doctor gives her an apologetic look. “It’s been an odd couple of years. What about you, Donna? How have you—” He breaks off when another set of memories from his older self abruptly slots into place. “Oh. Your mum and your husband both, just last year. I’m so sorry, Donna.”

“It’s not your fault. It’s Samael’s fault. And when he’s dead, I’ll be happy. Might even be able to move on from it all and get the bloody hell out of Chiswick.” Donna sounds resigned rather than grieving or angry, and the Doctor has no idea what to say. He’s always so bad with this part. Empathy is easy, but words are so easily twisted, and he hates that. His luck, he’d slip and mention how much he really didn’t like Sylvia Noble, but she could have gotten better after he left, and then he’d definitely be putting his foot in it. Stranger things have definitely happened than an overbearing mother finally getting over themselves.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Donna tells him. “Yeah, I still know you that well, even without your consciousness trying to eat my brain. I know you regret that they’re gone, an’ I know you regret not being here for me, and I know why. When you catch up to where your oldest self is now, you might even understand why none of us are holdin’ it against you.” She pauses and grins. “Well, maybe a bit. Mostly I just wanted to make certain I had your attention before you blue-screened at the sight of me.”

“You _definitely_ had my attention.” The Doctor wiggles his jaw. “My teeth still hurt.”

“Means I did it right,” Donna replies proudly. “Oh! I totally forget. You’re a distraction all on your own.” She digs into her pockets and pulls out two earpieces that have definitely advanced beyond the Bluetooth stage. “Granddad is coordinating communications so we can all talk to each other. If you turn it on, you’ll be able to hear what’s going on, but no one will hear you until you activate the mic.” She demonstrates with a button that is touch-based instead of spring-based, one that gives him a multitude of options to prod at later. For now, though, it’s already set for communicating with one of the oddest collections of beings the Doctor has _ever_ worked with.

They walk on in silence that doesn’t feel near as awkward as it should. God, he needed this. He knew he needed it, walking next to someone who understands, but he lost too much, too many, all at once. Feeling like his hearts have been torn out, all the broken pieces trying to run off in different directions, is one of the worst things he’s ever experienced. The Time War just barely tops out over it.

There are occasional voices, murmurs of people who are making plans. The Doctor catalogues them all, using Donna’s grip on his hand to keep himself grounded instead of spiraling into another bout of bloody self-pity.

Mickey and Martha always preferred to live their lives, one linear step forward at a time, and he doesn’t hold that against them. It suits them, even. Martha gave time travel a decent go, and it prepped her for an amazing life, but the experience hurt just as much as it helped. Mickey just wanted to know what all the fuss was about, and once he knew, that was enough for him. Sarah Jane had a son to raise, a boy the Doctor knew even then would make such an amazing name for himself.

Martha and Mickey have two young daughters. That delights the Doctor just as much as it makes his hearts ache.

When the Doctor dropped Jack off in London in 2009, he had responsibilities to Torchwood. By winter of 2010, Jack was going to have an entire institution to raise up from its ashes—and that was a terrible fixed point that the Doctor could _not_ be present for.

Those events don’t seem to have happened when he, for whatever bloody reason, rebooted Time in 1996. A fixed point didn’t happen. The Doctor can’t even go sticking his nose into things to find out _why_. This isn’t his time and place, it’s his eldest self’s. Maybe she’ll poke her nose into why.

Who is he kidding? That’s himself, different gender or not. Of _course_ she’ll poke her nose into finding out why.

He nearly stops walking when Sara Jane Smith’s funeral filters into his memories. 2011. Cancer. Luke was old enough for university, at least. The Doctor can remember his older self being relieved by that, one small bit of comfort in the midst of numb grief. No one recognized the Doctor when he attended Sarah Jane’s memorial services; they’d never met that particular face. He didn’t enlighten them, either.

No—that’s not entirely correct. There was a point during the church service when Jack turned around in his seat and looked directly at him. He didn’t say anything, just nodded and then went back to pretending he hadn’t noticed the stranger lurking in the back pew.

Then there was Rose, and…his Not-Self. Rose, standing on a beach in an alternate universe, once again wanting him so much to say those three important words, and—

There is an entire mental box in his head with Rose’s name on it, memories that came from his eldest self. Like Dardanus, it has a message scrawled on it: _Not unless safe in the TARDIS_.

That one is much harder to put aside.

The security door for the particle extraction lab is waiting for them, the green light overhead flickering like the bulbs are starting to die. The security panel is locked and shining an angry red.

Donna pulls a face. “Déjà vu. That’s always my favorite.”

The Doctor flips his sonic around in his hands. The last time they stood here, twelve years ago in this timeline and nearly twenty years ago for him, opening this door had given them a particle extraction laboratory, revealed a betrayal, led to a confrontation with a Racnoss Empress, explosions, and him accidentally draining part of the Thames in order to drown newly hatched, planet-consuming alien spiders.

Anything could be behind this door now. Which, really, that just makes it more fun.

“We’re not going to find out by just standing about twiddling our thumbs. Open the door already,” Donna huffs. “If alien spiders come scuttling at us, we’re capable of running for our lives.”

The Doctor grins. “That we are.”

They stand on either side of the door after the Doctor unlocks it. He pushes it open and they wait, listening for any hint of movement. The Doctor doesn’t hear anything, not even the rush of air from a climate control system.

“Well, that was anti-climactic.” Donna peers around the door and shines her mobile’s torch into the room. “Oh. That’s different.”

“What?” The Doctor steps into the room first, glancing around until he finds a bank of light switches. He flicks them all upwards with his hand, turning on every overhead light. “_What?_”

* * * *

Warlock settled in hours ago for another boring night at home. Alone. Again. No one notices if he stays up half the night because he can't sleep, and Warlock's just fine with that.

His parents are off…somewhere. Doing ambassadory things. Well, his father is being an ambassador, and his mother is posing for pictures. Warlock paid attention just long enough to learn that they were going to be in Lancashire for Boring Reasons before tuning them out.

They never ask Warlock to go with them unless they need to show off their Traditional American Family Values, anyway. It’s all such complete bullshit. They didn’t even stay in America long enough last autumn for Warlock to try and figure out what American Family Values actually are, aside from the fact that kids his own age in America are thrilled to make fun of his name.

Jealous assholes. His name is awesome. It makes him unique among the horde of spoiled brats who pretend to be his friends when their parents tell them to.

As far as Warlock is concerned, he only has one real friend. His one real friend assures Warlock that he’ll have more real friends one day instead of just him, and it’s okay to be angry and sad about it in the meantime, because people suck. Eventually, though…Nanny promised him that one day he’ll find people who don’t suck, who will like Warlock for himself instead of who his Dad is.

He’s eleven, and Nanny has loved him since he was a baby. He believes her. Him. Honestly, whichever gender Nanny goes by seems to depend on her mood that day. Warlock usually doesn’t use gender terms in their texts until Nanny gives Warlock a hint about what sort of mood they’re in.

Warlock’s parents wouldn’t approve of Nanny liking to be anything except his former _female_ nanny. He figured out before he was eight years old that his parents’ version of American Family Values, at least, is really bloody stupid.

One of the only things that saved Warlock’s sanity in America, and kept him out of trouble, was the day last November when his mobile alerted him that he had a text. From Nanny.

She talked him through some of his worst days overseas, even if it was all by text so his parents wouldn’t wonder about skyrocketing cell phone bills. Chat apps that use Wi-Fi instead of data are awesome, and Warlock is a lot smarter than he lets on. Always leave them wondering, Nanny taught him, so that’s exactly what he does.

When his parents received orders in February to fly back to England and take up residence in Warlock’s childhood home again, Warlock was thrilled. He was sick to death of Washington, D.C., absolutely done with being his parents’ showpiece, and he really, really missed decent chips. French fries just really aren’t the same.

Even better: Nanny came to visit him. That meant more conversations about gender than they’d already had before Warlock’s eleventh birthday, since that day Nanny was presenting as a man named Anthony Crowley—his real name, he’d said. Warlock commented that he’d rather liked Ashtoreth. Nanny grinned and told Warlock that he saved that particular name for special occasions…which meant that to Nanny, Warlock’s entire childhood was a special occasion.

Then Nanny convinced Warlock’s guards to trust Warlock’s custody to _him_ for the day, and took him out into London for the first time without any sort of stupid security escort. Being able to act like a real kid was the absolute best. Warlock didn’t have to be extra nice, or be a raging jackass to keep people away from him. He got to just _be_.

Nanny told him that what he was feeling was called freedom. Nanny was rather fond of that, himself.

Warlock asked Nanny during her second visit (definitely a woman this time) if she was dating Brother Francis yet. Nanny choked on her coffee. Warlock assumed that meant yes.

He puts down his 3DS when his mobile chirps. It’s the specific cricket noise Warlock uses just for Nanny so he knows when it’s her. Besides, cricket noises in class are overlooked. His school has such a weird infestation of crickets everywhere that no one ever suspects Warlock’s phone is one of the culprits.

Crickets also remind him of sitting outside with Nanny and Brother Francis in the evenings, watching it get dark and listening to the crickets and frogs start up with the noise. They disagreed with each other’s ideas about how life should be lived, but not about sitting on a blanket with Warlock every time his parents took off somewhere else without him. The older he gets, the more Warlock is grateful to them both, even as weird as they are, because they cared. Because they love him. They love him even though Warlock is half-convinced his parents keep forgetting that he exists.

He’s still glad that Brother Francis fixed his teeth, though. That was a bit much.

**01:45 Nanny C: **Where are you?

Warlock frowns. They’re not usually so blunt.

**01:45 Warlock eD: **Stuck at home in the Winfield House. Mom and Dad are off north somewhere.

**01:45 Nanny C: **Your bedroom

**01:45 Warlock eD: **Yep.

Warlock hesitates before he hits send.

**01:46 Warlock eD:** Why?

**01:46 Nanny C: **Want to see something wicked?

**01:46 Warlock eD:** Like the thing with your hair, making it longer and shorter? (◠‿◠)

**01:47 Nanny C: **Better. Also, weirder. Going to ring your mobile. When I do, accept the call and then hold the mobile out away from you. Got it?

**01:47 Warlock eD:** Got it!

Warlock scoots to the end of his bed and waits. A number that Warlock doesn’t recognize pops up. He doesn’t keep any of his contact numbers under special ringtones because he doesn’t want his parents growing a brain between them and wanting to know who he speaks to. If he’s not alone when his mobile rings, he can tell Mom and Dad it’s a spam number and send the call to voicemail.

They definitely wouldn’t approve of him still talking to Nanny even if Nanny was always a girl, anyway. He’s supposed to be “too old” for that sort of thing, but Warlock overheard his dad say that he thinks it’ll make Warlock gay to have a nanny around.

Warlock’s _eleven-and-a-half_. He hasn’t even started thinking about girls or boys or anything like that yet. His dad is an idiot.

His jaw falls open when Nanny is suddenly standing in the middle of his bedroom, brushing dust off their jacket. “Hello, sorry, you can hang up the mobile now.”

“That was _so cool!_” Warlock gushes, leaping off the bed and running straight into Nanny’s arms. “How did you do that? Am I allowed to do that?”

“I can’t even take you with me to let you see how much fun it is,” Nanny says regretfully. They’re not doing the voice thing, so that means male today, not female. “I’ll make it up to you, if I live long enough: we’ll hit up every roller coaster in Europe, because what I did is sort of like that.”

“Awesome.” Warlock grins up at Nanny and then feels the expression slide off his face. Nanny isn’t wearing his sunglasses, which he only takes off if he needs to be serious. Warlock loves Nanny’s eyes, his own secret to keep from his parents and everyone else in the house. His parents think Nanny has an eye condition, but the truth is so much better.

“What’s wrong?”

“London is being evacuated,” Nanny says. “Yes, it’s really that serious.”

Warlock blinks a few times. “You weren’t trying to be funny about that living long enough crack, were you?”

Nanny shakes his head. “No. The rest of the household will evacuate when it’s their turn, but I’m getting you out now and putting you someplace I know you’ll be safe.” He holds out his arms. “Please.”

Warlock’s always appreciated that Nanny might phrase things as an order, but it’s still his choice. Besides, he’s not certain the staff would remember Warlock if they have to evacuate. It’s not like they pay attention to him any more than his parents do.

He tucks his mobile into his jeans, grabs his 3DS and its travel bag, and then steps forward into Nanny’s arms. “Moving about the fast way, like we used to and I wasn’t supposed to tell Brother Francis about it, right?”

“He would have said I was cheating,” Nanny replies. Warlock can tell he finds the idea funny. “Hold on.”

Warlock doesn’t close his eyes. He never did after the first few times. It’s fun to watch everything around them go sort of blurry and then twisted, like someone’s knotting up reality like they’re bunching up a sheet of fabric. It’s wicked cool. Then it’s over with, and they’re standing on asphalt.

He only knows it’s Soho because he’s been here before, but he’s never heard central London sound so quiet. Warlock presses closer to Nanny on instinct. He’s not magical or anything—though Nanny did say she once thought he might be—but he’d be daft to miss that something is really, really wrong.

“Adam,” Nanny says, and Warlock refocuses his attention outward. There’s a boy standing a few feet away, dressed in tan shorts, a scuffed-up jean jacket, and a blue t-shirt that’s the same color as his eyes. He has an absolute mop of dark blond hair that Warlock’s parents would never approve of. On another kid, Warlock might think it looks stupid, but this Adam boy just looks…normal.

Adam is also pouting. “I want to stay and help.”

“I know.” Nanny’s arm around Warlock tightens. “But this is too big to leave to chance, Adam. I’m not putting both of my godsons in danger. If you got lost in the shuffle, if something happened to either of you, I’d be staking myself out on the ground to let your parents take their pound of flesh.”

“Gross,” Warlock says at once, wrinkling his nose. “Besides, my parents wouldn’t care.”

“_I_ do,” Nanny hisses in reminder. “Maybe if your fool parents panic about you being lost in the chaos for a bit, they might remember that they’re supposed to give a damn about you, as well. By the way, Warlock Dowling? This is Adam Young. Adam, Warlock. Adam, I’m not a democracy. You’re leaving London, right now.”

Adam sighs, but it’s not any sort of spoiled brat sigh. Whatever’s going wrong, he really wants to help stop it. Warlock thinks he’s nuts for wanting it, not when they have adults who can deal with the stupid shit, but then, what does he know, really? Warlock isn’t allowed to go anywhere without an armed escort unless Nanny convinces them that they have better things to do.

“Okay. Jasmine Cottage?” Adam asks, stepping close enough so that Nanny can reach out and take his free hand.

“You’ll all be safer in one place. I also have it on good authority that the Them are still awake.”

“All right, then.” Adam grins at Warlock. It’s a really sweet, innocent smile, but Warlock still has the creepy feeling that when Adam looks at Warlock, he already knows everything about him, and not because Nanny is a tattletale. “Nice to meet you, Warlock. You’ll like the Them. They’re just…well. They’re _Them_.”

Warlock manages a shrug. He’ll be reserving judgment on that, thanks. Hopefully they’re not going to be more examples of Adam’s x-ray vision weirdness.

Reality blurs and twists again. This time Warlock looks around to find himself inside a cottage that’s only a bit larger than the one the gardener assigned to the Winfield House lives in. It’s also full of chaos.

“ADAM!” three different kids shout, and Adam is immediately lost in a sea composed of two boys and a girl and far too many limbs and hugging.

Warlock watches them, jealous and trying not to scowl at the sight of kids who are so obviously, really and truly, _friends_ with each other. Then he realizes Nanny has let him go and turns around to find him leaning against the wall, looking really pale. “Nanny?”

“M’all right,” Nanny whispers, which is such a lie. “Just need a minute.”

A woman with long dark hair and black-rimmed glasses rushes out of another room, gives Nanny a narrow-eyed look, and then stalks over to him. “Crowley! You could have warned me that you were bringing me two extra kids!”

Nanny lifts his head and smirks at her. “You’re welcome. Warlock Dowling, meet Anathema Device. She’s a real witch. Behave yourself.”

Warlock’s eyes widen in delight. “Hi! Can you turn me into something cool? Like an iguana?”

Anathema gives him a blank stare. “I—I just read auras. And do, er, other things. Crowley, what’s going on?”

“London’s being evacuated, which means my godsons are staying the hell away from there until we either fix the problem or…don’t fix it.” Nanny straightens up and shoves his sunglasses back onto his face. “I cashed in two favors so that Jasmine Cottage has a guard from Above and Below keeping an eye on things. You won’t see them unless something goes wrong, so definitely hope that you never lay eyes on them.”

“There are people from Above and Below who get on aside from your lot and Ba’al?” Anathema asks in disbelief. Warlock wonders who Ba‘al is. Their name is already kind of badass.

“It happens. Barachiel and Dagon have been shuffling paperwork back and forth for so long that I don’t think they remember anymore that they’re supposed to be enemies. Just—it’s only a precaution, all right? Everything’s going to be fine.”

Anathema gives Nanny the sort of stare that Warlock’s mom used to reserve for furtive looks at Brother Francis’s teeth. “That was the least convincing thing I’ve ever heard you say. Hey, Warlock, you want to help me set more wards on the cottage? You’ll learn real witchcraft, which will go nicely with your name.”

“Just the wards,” Nanny says firmly. “Nothing else, Book Girl.”

“I’ve had an apprentice before. I know what I’m doing,” Anathema retorts. “Don’t teleport straight back. Use the phone, Crowley.”

Nanny makes a grumbling sound of agreement before he hugs Warlock again. “Keep the world-conquering quiet among this lot, but otherwise, be yourself,” he whispers into Warlock’s ear. “They like honesty, and questions, and have very interesting ideas about how to play games. Give them a chance. Give _yourself_ a chance, sweetheart.”

“I will,” Warlock whispers back, trying to figure out why he feels like crying. “Whatever weird thing you’re doing, be careful, okay?”

“Not sure I know the meaning of the word,” Nanny replies. “Adam! If you wander around outside, don’t ask Dagon about their teeth. They’re sensitive about it.”

“No mentioning the teeth. Got it.” Adam bites his lip and then says, “Don’t die, okay? Like, don’t even discorporate. Just don’t. Not any of you.”

Nanny picks up the phone and dials a number. Warlock doesn’t need to see Nanny’s eyes to know he’s rolling them at Adam. “You realize you just included Lucy in with that statement, right?”

Adam’s jaw drops in what looks a lot like soap opera outrage. “Oi, no, that’s not what I—”

“Too late.” Nanny grins and waves. “Incoming, Michael,” he says, and vanishes directly into the telephone receiver.

“That is _never_ going to get old,” the girl in the group says, bopping her way over to properly hang up the phone. “And I don’t care what Crowley says. It’s nothing but science and molecules when you get right down to it. I bet we can figure it out.”

“I think we could figure it out, too,” Warlock finds himself saying. He immediately becomes Pippin Galadriel Moonchild’s New Favorite Person aside from Adam.

Warlock won’t find out that her name isn’t really Pepper until they’re all in uni together.

* * * *

It took all of a millisecond for the Doctor and her younger self to realize that trying to assemble the diverter inside the TARDIS would be a dumb idea. It should have taken less time than that, but with two more of herself running about and the great big pile of Everything trying to happen at once, she’s a bit distracted. She figures she’s allowed to be, all things considered.

Her younger self’s TARDIS was kind enough to let them pop over right next to the smaller set of interlinked heptagrams so they didn’t have to carry every single heavy part from inside the bookshop all the way out to the intersection. No time travel allowed, but they don’t need it right now. Also, blood aside, the heptagrams are _lovely_ formulas to look at. Now they have all the parts on the ground, and it’s not going to take long to finish it off. The worst part is still the dish’s alignment to find a new home for a nice and very distant black hole.

All right, so it’ll still take nearly three hours, including dish alignment time, but that’s plenty of time. Absolutely it is.

It’s plenty of time as long as they only have to deal with Samael, Typhaon, and a handful of rogue demons. Those runes on all the local doors will keep the humans safe from their original set of problems.

If the Racnoss get involved, it’s going to be a complete omnishambles.

She likes that word. Omnishambles.

The Doctor, Jack, and River—sans earpiece, just to be cautious—are listening to Jack deal with the fact that they don’t have enough time to evacuate London if the Racnoss get involved. Jack hasn’t stopped working with them while having the discussion with the others, but he’s always been a great multi-tasker. Hard to flirt and save the world at the same time if you’re not. She also suspects he’s tying part of the diverter’s controls into his wrist strap, but it’s a nice contingency measure. She likes those, too.

Really, it’s sort of like hauling the diverter outside was a signal for everyone to wander out onto Greek Street at once. Well, not Wilf, but he’s doing comm checks with the earpieces Jack provided. So far, so good on that front, clear signals, distinct voices. Hopefully Samael’s presence later won’t bugger that up. Every Celestial except Crowley and Israfil seem boggled by the earpieces, but Aziraphale is trying, at least, to consider them normal even as he works on completing the other warding circles. It’s clear he doesn’t _like_ them, but the Doctor has seen that man’s shop. She gets it.

The Doctor is looking forward to getting a good, solid look at the warding circles. Those are mathematically crafted shields, she knows it, and it’s so amazing to see it all done without technology.

Rose is holding the bucket for Aziraphale while the latter works. She has her earpiece, but is staying off the comm for now, if only so she doesn’t distract Sandshoes in the midst of Racnoss-hunting.

_Oh, bugger that_, the Doctor thinks. Distraction is putting it too mildly. Complete meltdown and possible sobbing is far more accurate.

“Jack, if we declare Protocol One, it’s going to be disastrous,” Martha is saying. The Doctor cocks her head. That isn’t Martha necessarily disagreeing so much as playing devil’s advocate—probably appropriate, given their present company.

“If something goes wrong, _not_ declaring it would be worse,” Jack counters, not even bothering to look up from the control panel he’s setting into place. “Two choices, Martha: nine million corpses, or nine million irritable Londoners who are still alive to complain about it. Personally, I’m not in the mood for more corpses.”

“This is mental.” Mickey paces around in a brief circle before he faces them again. “We can’t evac London in three hours, even if you declared Protocol One right now.”

Jack glances down at the Doctor, his smile wry and tired, before he answers Mickey. “Good thing I initiated it fifteen minutes ago, then. It’s already underway.”

Martha covers her mouth with her hand for a moment. “Oh, God. Jack, Mickey’s still right. Our best bet is the other Doctor and Donna finding the Racnoss and stopping them. I’m glad you’re sneaky and all, but three hours is _insane_.”

“Would someone please tell me what the _fuck_ Protocol One is?” Gabriel requests. Given the way Michael rolls his eyes, he isn’t the only one who thinks Gabriel might need to work on learning more about How to People.

“Protocol One is the complete evacuation of the whole of London County and its closest townships and/or villages held within the bounds of the M25, to be activated in the event of an impending or ongoing catastrophic event,” Martha recites, her lips thinned out in an unhappy line.

“Oh.” Gabriel ponders that for a moment. “Why bother? There are plenty of other humans on this planet.”

The Doctor looks up in time to see Israfil grind his teeth. “Gabriel, you are so very fortunate that my brother is not currently present, and thus did not hear you say that.”

“I don’t care who you are. If anything that stupid comes out of your mouth again, I’m shooting you,” Mickey promises in a flat voice. “Cause you don’t sound like any sort of angel my gran taught me about. Lucy over there is doing a better job of giving a shit about the people living in London than you are.”

The Doctor has to duck her head and bite on her knuckle to keep from laughing too loudly. Gabriel is sputtering in anger and mortification, and it’s a grand sight. Lucy, for her part, looks utterly _horrified_ to have been found more capable of empathy than an archangel.

“The family dynamic is buggered, but it’s quite a bit of entertainment. I’m rather glad we’re only genetically related to two of them, though,” her younger self says, and the Doctor has to stifle another fit of giggles against her hand.

“Speaking of Crowley…” Michael retrieves his clear-screen mobile and holds it out just in time for Crowley to stumble out and catch himself on Saraquel’s arm. “I still say that is an abominable way to travel, little brother.”

“Nah, s’just like a roller coaster. Including the desire to maybe vomit.” Crowley shakes himself and glances around after he recovers his balance. “Oh, did Gabriel say something stupid again? Because it really looks like he did.”

“Yes,” several of them reply before Gabriel can open his mouth.

Crowley rolls his eyes. “You’ll learn, Gabriel. Or you might actually get yourself killed, but you definitely won’t be able to say I didn’t warn you.”

“Are Adam and Warlock safely ensconced in Jasmine Cottage?” Aziraphale asks. The Doctor looks over at his work long enough to see that Aziraphale has every heptagram filled except for the seventh, outermost ring.

“The kids are safe, Anathema might hate me now, and I’m pretty sure Newt is planning his own vasectomy as we speak, but yeah, they’re fine. Also, since when does Dagon actually like me?” Crowley asks.

“More like they’re angrily terrified of you,” Ba‘al says in a mild voice. “Bathtub, Crowley.”

“Oh, right. That does explain why Dagon promised to eat any demon or spider that tried to harm my godsons.”

“_Can you lot hear me?_”

The Doctor presses her finger to the earpiece to engage the mic. Judging from the others’ reactions, the message is meant for everyone. “Yeah, Donna,” the Doctor says after watching Crowley yank his earpiece out of his jacket pocket and put it on. “We’re listening.”

“_You’re coming through loud and clear, sweetheart_,” Wilf adds from his station inside the bookshop.

“_Good to know these things don’t care about distance_,” Donna says. “_We’ve got problems_.”

“No, no, no. I said it: no more problems allowed! Didn’t I say that?” the Doctor’s younger self shouts in frustration.

“_Oi, stop your whinging and listen_,” Donna retorts.

“_Jack._” The Doctor lifts her head as Sandshoes joins the conversation. “_Torchwood bought out H.C. Clements in 2005, yeah?_”

“Who _is_ that?” Saraquel asks without engaging his mic.

Crowley stays off the mic to answer. “That’s who Michael tried to kill with a sword in Bethlehem in 4 BC.”

Michael winces and looks rather embarrassed. “Bloody _time travelers_,” he mutters.

“Yeah,” Jack answers Sandshoes. “We shut down their operations that same year, haven’t touched the place since. Why?”

“_Because it takes time to set up a particle extraction lab, and quite a bit more time to get results, especially if you’re aiming for particles that don’t exist anymore_.”

“_In fewer words: the particle lab hidden below the H.C. Clements offices was never finished_,” Donna cuts in. “_Neither was the tunnel that they’d originally drilled all the way down to the Racnoss’s ship in the center of the Earth. The tunnel in London goes down about five hundred feet and ends in solid rock_.”

“They up and moved operations before we got there.” Jack bashes his fist against a piece of dalekanium that hasn’t been welded into place yet. “Dammit!”

“Or they waited until Torchwood was looking the other way and moved shop afterwards,” Martha points out. “Any sign of where they went?”

“_They didn’t remember to take the computers with them, and their password was rubbish_,” Donna answers. “_Whoever was running this gig moved everything to Portobello, Otago, New Zealand. The exact opposite side of the globe from London._”

“Shit. You’re already in New Zealand, aren’t you?” Mickey asks, sharing a look with Martha. “You wouldn’t be calling otherwise.”

“_Yup_,” Sandshoes confirms, drawing out the word. “_And it’s not good._”

Crowley ignores the fact that Gabriel, Saraquel, and Michael are blatantly staring at him. “Please define not good.”

Sandshoes sucks in a breath. “_Eggs. Thousands of them. More than a Racnoss ship could hold. Eggs that’ve already hatched_.”

“_They finished drilling down to the Earth’s core on this side of things_.” Donna sighs. “_Looks like they brought up whatever eggs were on the ship, and then the Empress came down to Earth and started laying more_.”

“_Pretty sure the Racnoss Empress was hard at it, too, least until she finally died of old age_,” Sandshoes says.

“_I thought I was going to piss myself in terror until I realized it was just an empty carapace and not bloody_ her!” Donna adds. “_Oh, and yeah, here’s our other big clue. There’s a map here of the entirety of the London Underground, but it’s Central London that has the big red circle around it. Wherever they teleported off to, they definitely mean to come back, and we know exactly where they’re going_.”

“_But, here’s the thing: there’s no particle extraction laboratory_,” Sandshoes cuts in again. “_They’d started to build one in the H.C. Clements building in London, but they abandoned it halfway through. They didn’t even bother to start building that sort of laboratory here. If they weren’t making Huon particles, where did they get Huon particles in order to convince thousands of Racnoss eggs to bloody hatch?_”

“That word, Huon—we don’t know that word,” Israfil says in frustration. “Describe Huon particles, please.”

“_Oh. Deadly particles that existed in the void before the expansion of the universe made them extinct_,” Sandshoes replies. “_Well, mostly extinct. If you find yourself a TARDIS that’s old enough, you’ll find a few floating about in her core._”

Donna audibly sighs. “_They look like thick clouds of tiny bits of living and animated golden glitter_.”

Israfil squeezes his eyes shut. “Oh, for God’s sake. They wouldn’t need a particle extractor. All the Racnoss would need is access to someone old enough to have existed during the time of the void. If I understand what you’re describing correctly, then Celestial or Fallen, it doesn’t matter—Huon particles are in our blood.”

Crowley rubs his face with both hands. “We’ve been asking the wrong question, working on an assumption. Samael’s alliance with the Racnoss isn’t new. It’s at least a decade old. Worse, Samael knew the Racnoss were here. He knew it from the start.”

“The reset timeline,” the Doctor murmurs. “Samael wasn’t trapped above a black hole. The way time flexes around it would have kept the reset from affecting him. He would have still been free.”

“Free to contact any allies he might’ve made.” Crowley paced his way around the outermost bounds of the heptagram warding circles while Aziraphale kept a careful eye on him. “Then he just had to wait, escape the black hole, retreat to Megiddo, and find a demon among his idiot allies old enough to still have Huon particles in their blood.”

Lucy scowls. “There are a number of demons who are old enough to have existed before the expansion of the universe, myself included.”

“Bet you you’re missing a demon from the ranks,” Crowley says.

“If they were stupid enough to help the Racnoss, they deserved to be eaten for it,” Lucy snaps back. “Even I’m not that foolish!”

The Doctor hesitates for a moment, but thousands of Racnoss, all of them coming here—they don’t have a choice anymore. “Donna, Sandshoes, get back here.”

“_Sandshoes_?” Sandshoes squawks indignantly.

“_That’s perfect. Keep doing that_,” Donna says. “_His face is a picture!_”

“What’s the idea, then?” her younger self asks, leaning against the door of his TARDIS.

The Doctor grins at him. “We need to recreate Taelaseen.”


	23. Taelaseen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Recreating the evacuation of Taelaseen is a great idea. Executing it in modern London is a waking nightmare.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You have no idea how much screaming went into this chapter.  
Just.  
So.  
Much.  
Screaming.
> 
> I did it to myself. I went and let the story do what it wanted. Nrrgghh.
> 
> Secondary note: I have not re-read this for a beta read in any form, so there might be some REALLY interesting blunders.

Saturday, 23rd May 2020, 1:57 a.m.

Mayfair, London

Crowley pops into his old Mayfair flat with a thought, only because he knows he ordered bloody everyone to go home for the weekend—even his favorite myopic computer software engineer, Mary Bell, though it usually takes Brandon Williams literally dragging Mary out the door to get her to go home.

Actually, now that he’s thinking about it, Crowley thinks Bran started taking Mary home to his wife Anna just to make certain Mary would bloody well sleep of a weekend. He idly wonders if that’s turned into a threesome before he seeks out John Eastman.

The low-ranking demon turned up a month after his sacking from TIftNG, asking Crowley for a job—literally, any job. The demon wasn’t picky.

“Why?” Crowley had asked, but he thought he knew the answer. “I mean, my reputation aside, I’m kind of an archangel now.”

“Yeah, but you’re not the smiting sort,” John muttered, which was true. Crowley spent too many millennia as a demon to be into that sort of thing.

Unless it’s Not-Hastur. That definitely remains an exception.

“I don’t want to go back Downstairs,” John admitted, shoulders slumping. His golden eyes reminded Crowley—guiltily—of Ligur, but John lacked all of Ligur’s other horrific traits, including the lizard. “It sucks in Hell, really it does. I like it up here, even if I’m…well. I’m not smart. You saw that already. But I was supposed to be a soldier when I was still part of Upstairs, and Downstairs, too, but I think they forgot that part about me. Who gives a blessing about the cherubim anyway, right?”

“Stupid of them. Aziraphale is terrifying,” Crowley had said, and hired John Eastman—demon name of Borzur—as company security.

“Heard on the radio that London’s getting prepped for an evacuation. That true, Crowley?” Borzur asks, looking nervous. Crowley doesn’t blame him; London has been standing in one form or another for over two thousand years. Earth without this city would be bloody weird.

“Yeah, it’s true.” Crowley glances around and snaps his fingers, sending every single item within TIftNG’s headquarters to its temporary (or new) home in Birmingham. He hasn’t really had time to decide on a final location, but at least Birmingham isn’t Cardiff and its giant bloody rift in time and space.

Borzur is the one who reaches out to prop Crowley up when things go hazy for a moment. “The Heaven you been into?” the minor demon asks in alarm. “You smell like Downstairs.”

“Long story. Also, I’m…” Crowley flaps his hand until Borzur remembers to let go of Crowley’s arm. “I’m fine. Probably. You remember how to send out the emergency instructions to every company mobile, right?”

Borzur nods. “Yeah, sure do. I’m not _that_ daft.”

“Good. Send the messages, and then get the fuck out of this city. Cheat if you have to, just get yourself beyond the boundary of the M25.” Crowley digs out a card that already has the new Birmingham address printed on it, because Crowley wanted it to, and hands it over. “You can babysit the new office until the others begin to turn up.”

Borzur takes the card and hesitates, a puzzled frown on his face. “Crowley, uh…whatever’s happening. Can I help with that?”

“Just keep an eye on the folks who work for this company. Keep them safe. That’ll help everyone, including us,” Crowley tells him. He sends a text to Warlock’s phone to start a necessary conversation and then teleports back to the bookshop.

Saturday, 23rd May 2020, 2:05 a.m.

Cardiff, Wales

Ianto Jones never wants to repeat this day ever again, whether he can recall the repetition or not. The thought of trying to evacuate Cardiff isn’t nearly as daunting as coping with bloody _London_.

He’d also like to never speak to their current Right Honourable prime minister ever again. Jack owes him so many favors just for this one phone call. “Yes, sir, I’m aware of the fact that it’s completely mental to evacuate London, much less evacuate it under the current timeframe.”

Ianto listens to three more minutes of solid ranting. He is well aware of how long it would take to run a proper evac of London, thank you. He knows the evac times for every major city in Great Britain. London requires a full day if everyone is already mobilized and ready at the start, and that’s with absolutely zero complications.

“Sir, the longer we speak, the longer it will take to mobilize the very resources you’re speaking of. In times of crisis, it’s your job to—”

Ianto scowls. Oh, hell no. That man did _not_ just try to pull rank over him. Ianto doesn’t care how poor his beginnings were; he knows exactly how much power he holds right now.

“Actually, sir, because of the mandate drafted by Her Majesty Queen Victoria in 1879 to create the Torchwood Institute and all of its later subsidiaries, _I do_ have full authority to tell you that right now, you are to instigate the evacuation of the whole of London held within the boundary of the M25. Unless you’re willing to add the deaths of nearly ten million people to your political career, that is. Sir.”

That earns him a sigh. “Do we have other resources, Mister Jones, that will assist in this impossible task?”

Ianto smiles. Progress. “As a matter of fact, sir, we do. Oh, though you might have to officially recognize the presence of alien life on this planet after the crisis has passed, given the assistance we’re about to receive.”

“Oh, God. Is it _him_?” the prime minister asks.

“I’d worry less about the Doctor and more about the privately owned vessels and assorted matters of transport that are about to brighten your day, sir.”

“If this turns out to be a false alarm, if I evacuate London for no reason, my entire career will be forfeit. You can be damned sure that I’ll take Torchwood down with me, Mister Jones.”

Ianto snorts. “You would first have to discuss such political maneuvering with Her Majesty, sir.” He ends the call on his earpiece and strongly considers the merits of throwing his coffee mug across the room. It isn’t as if he doesn’t have more of them.

“He’s right,” Tosh says from her chat window on the laptop next to him. “If this even has the _appearance_ of a false alarm, the powers that be are never going to let Torchwood forget it.”

Ianto thinks about Jack, and his shaking, guilt-wracked tale of the 456 while Ianto curled around him in their bed, a constant reminder that they’d passed that point in time and the event hadn’t repeated itself. Jack was a complete fucking wreck for that entire year, and finally hearing the reason why had almost made everything worse.

Jack knows exactly what happens if the British government decides that Torchwood is superfluous, and he gave the order anyway. “Jack already made the call, Tosh. We’re Torchwood.”

“Retired Torchwood,” Tosh interjects, but it’s only a token protest. Retired or not, she’ll never leave them to fend for themselves when lives are at stake.

Ianto nods. “Chelsea?”

“I’m coordinating with Torchwood One’s medical staff, but I might have to duck out for a few and kick my bloody assistant out of his bed,” Torchwood’s medical officer replies, scowling. “If I don’t get to sleep through the invasion of London, neither does Dennis!”

“Got it,” Ianto says. “Do what you have to. If you need to taser Dennis to wake him, make sure it’s a mild jolt this time.”

Chelsea grabs her coat and reactivates the mic on her ear-piece as she heads for the exit. “Yes, I’m serious about the sort of teams I want standing by, and where!” she shouts before the cog wheel shuts behind her.

Ianto glances up at the monitor tracking the progress of Torchwood Three’s other members as they travel east along the M4, unimpressed with their speed. He taps the comm. “You have a siren. Use it, Alec.”

“Look, not all of us can drive like Harkness!” Alec retorts.

“Learn!” Ianto snaps back. “We’re on a bloody schedule, and it’s not waiting for your slow arse!” He cuts the comm and grinds his teeth. It figures that Mitchell would have shot him in the right leg, the one he needs to bloody well _drive_. He’s been practicing with the handheld system for three years now, but so far, the results aren’t great. Luke and the younger lot like to tease Ianto that he didn’t play enough video games as a kid to have the right reaction time. Ianto refrains from reminding them that he was too fucking _poor_ for that, and he can really do without the reminders.

“So…I know UNIT isn’t a thing anymore, but…”

Ianto finds Luke staring at his station with his lips pursed sideways, almost like a drunken goldfish. “What, Luke?” he asks, thinking on how much he’d really like UNIT to exist right about now. Ianto doesn’t care anymore about the rivalry between them. They bloody well need the help.

“Back when Mum was still actively working the field, she made friends with Erisa Magambo. Nice lady out of the uniform, sort of terrifying when she’s wearing it. Magambo made lieutenant colonel before UNIT was forcibly disbanded in 2018,” Luke explains. “And I still know how to get ahold of her directly. She made certain I could always reach her, especially after Mum died.”

Ianto seeks out one of the three live feed monitors, this one from Torchwood Five. “Kate?”

UNIT’s former brigadier nods. “If anyone can get inactive UNIT officers together and working on a goal in record time, it’s her. Give Magambo a ring, Luke, and hope to God that she’s in range of London.”

Luke grins. “Already dialing her now, ma’am.”

2:15 a.m.

Soho, London

Rose listens to the silence that follows the mention of Taelaseen, but there is only understanding on two faces: her first Doctor, and her current Doctor. It’s a happy sort of understanding, though, so Rose assumes that Taelaseen is a good thing.

She has no idea what she’s going to do about names when her second Doctor turns up. Thing One, Thing Two, Thing Three? Doctor, John, and Not-Jane, like Crowley is doing?

It was easier to keep track of them when the Bad Wolf was just a joined consciousness with that of the Moment, nudging the three Doctors into taking the other option that had always awaited them for saving Gallifrey. It just had to be at the right—well, the right _moment_.

“_Oh, that’s clever_,” Rose hears her second Doctor—John again, she finally decides—say through the comm. She keeps her mic silenced, just as River is doing, but eavesdrops without a bit of shame. “_I like it when we’re clever. Saves a lot of time._”

“It’s completely bloody mad, but it’s a fantastic idea,” the Doctor agrees, flipping his sonic screwdriver in his hand.

“What the bloody hell is Taelaseen?” Mickey asks. “And how many explosions are involved in recreating it?”

“None! Well, there shouldn’t be any,” Not-Jane replies. “And if there needed to be, they’d be useful ones.”

Rose thinks about it for a moment before catching River’s eye. _Psychic?_ she thinks. Rose isn’t psychic beyond a few tricks she’s picked up. Maybe she’s more psychic than she was, which originally was Not At All, but she figured out how to get the Doctor to hear basic thoughts from Rose when she was nineteen and at the end of her first year of traveling.

River’s nod is so brief it’s easy to miss. Rose lifts an eyebrow in a brief tic to acknowledge her, glad she has enough control over her thoughts to keep everything else to herself. She feels so awful for River, who is going to leave 2020 Earth with half of her memories knocked fuzzy just to keep her own timeline from becoming a cock-up. Rose is a time traveler, yeah, but she’s rather fond of her life happening in a linear sort of order.

_Taelaseen?_ Rose asks, and River shakes her head. The Bad Wolf knows how intertwined River Song and the Doctor are/were; this is _definitely_ something the Doctor doesn’t talk about, then.

“_Taelaseen was a city on Gallifrey_,” John says. “_It was discovered that the Daleks were on their way to destroy it, but before they could do so, Taelaseen was evacuated. The city and land was lost to the Daleks, but except for a few stubborn holdouts who wouldn’t evacuate, Taelaseen was one of our few real victories during the second century of the Time War._”

Not-Jane looks surprised that John was willing to fill in the blanks. “Losing buildings was nothing. It was the people who mattered.”

“And we’re the ones who got them out.” The Doctor focuses on the singularity diverter’s construction so he doesn’t have to meet anyone’s eyes. “One TARDIS rearranged with two exits in a configuration that knocked out the distance from the city borders to a secured escape route through the mountains down to about ten meters instead of several kilometers.”

“So, same way you can walk around that massive bloody ship that likes to hide in the shape of a small blue box. It’s configured to keep the pocket dimensions contained, yeah?” Crowley is eying the Doctor’s TARDIS. “Then you change the pocket dimension so it’s actually stretched out to that ship’s full length, but on the inside, anyone who enters is routed through the shortest distance between two points. Instead of three kilometers—”

“_More like five to seven_,” Donna offers. “_If she’s in a good mood._”

Crowley makes a dismissive noise. “Fine. Instead of a _lot_ of kilometers, it’s your ten or fifteen meters to cross from an entrance to an exit.”

“I built entire star systems, and I’m currently ashamed to admit that I have no idea what you just said.” Saraquel looks even more Renaissance-y when baffled, which Rose thinks really is overdoing it a bit.

“It’s a fucking shortcut,” Crowley says. Saraquel, Michael, and Gabriel nod in sudden comprehension. Aziraphale sighs and rolls his eyes; Israfil gives him a brief pat on the shoulder in commiseration. Israfil might not have understood all the words, but Rose noticed he immediately latched onto the concepts in a way the other three Celestials couldn’t bloody fathom.

How are some of the oldest things in the universe this bad at physics? On her good days, Rose considers herself a well-read human of middling intelligence, and even she can understand how to rearrange a few sodding boxes!

“We evacuated ten million people with one TARDIS in six hours. Imagine what we could do with three TARDISes and only nine million people?” Not-Jane asks, grinning. That’s the Doctor’s smile when they’re already certain it can be done, and they’re just waiting for everyone else to catch up.

“Yeah, one problem. Gallifreyans were used to how a TARDIS operates. Your typical Londoner is _not_,” Martha points out. “Unless one of you has been naughty and not mentioned it, we’re still dealing with three broken chameleon circuits.”

“We don’t need a chameleon circuit for this.” Not-Jane grins. “We just reprogram the perception filters while Torchwood’s people direct everyone not in easy range of the M25 to head to some specifically marked escape points in the city.”

_“You want to turn the TARDIS’s perception filter, the thing that means people ignore her, into a giant red waving flag screaming, ‘Here I am!’”_ John inhales through his nose, a long, deep breath. Rose _knows_ that reaction. That’s the Doctor’s frustration swiftly being overtaken by the creative challenge of an idea._ “Sure. Why not? Oh, and we’re on our way back right now.”_

“Great, see you in a few minutes,” the Doctor replies, and mutes his comm. “We need a map of the whole of London. Everything that’s underground, and every street above it.”

“Got it.” Jack pulls out his mobile, dialing a number on its glass screen. That particular tech is ancient now for Rose, but she’d rather like to have one of the old mobiles again. Besides, her father’s reality had run in a different direction regarding global communications after this year, and she doesn’t want to be stuck not knowing how to ring someone. “Luke! Today, I’m glad you don’t sleep. I need maps of everything London, above and below, holographic format, sent to my wrist strap the moment you’ve got everything compiled together. Yeah? Thanks.”

“Why the perception filter, though?” Mickey asks. “Why not just repair the chameleon circuit thing?”

“Because that would take…” Not-Jane wrinkles her nose. “More hours than we have, especially when we already have a project.”

“Besides,” Jack puts in. “The perception filter doesn’t filter out the TARDIS from someone’s sight unless that’s the easiest option. It shows whatever someone _needs_ to see in order to ignore it. Sort of like a mini-chameleon circuit, but you can’t use it that way all the time. Power drain.”

Jack dials a new number and walks off. Rose hears his voice long enough to catch the switch to full military lingo and stops listening. That part of the plan doesn’t involve her, and she’s fine with it. The number of wars she’s seen or fought in at this point is really quite enough.

Mickey reaches up, turns off his comm, and grins at Martha. “Strax is going to be so disappointed to miss this.”

“He’ll cope,” Martha responds dryly. “I don’t care how he feels about it as long as he does as you tell him and uses the emergency teleports to get our kids to Cardiff. Oh, and don’t let him forget the bugout bags.”

“Got it. You tell Ianto to expect the potato nurse, I’ll handle the rest,” Mickey agrees. Rose considers burying her face in her hands. She’s never going to be able to look at a Sontaran the same way ever again.

Aziraphale stands up and rubs his arm across his forehead, but if he’s sweating, Rose can’t see it. He does, unfortunately, leave a smear of red behind with a golden cast to it. She opens her mouth to let him know that his face and shirtsleeve are stained, but Aziraphale notices the stain on his sleeve, snaps his fingers, and cleans himself off with a thought.

_Yeah, okay, I wanna learn how to do that, too,_ Rose admits to herself. “You done, mate?”

“With one of the most complicated magical workings I’ve ever crafted? Nearly,” Aziraphale answers, looking quite pleased with Rose for asking. “I only need two more things.” He glances at the pair of Doctors who are going to be involved in the madness with Crowley. “I need to know how old _each_ of you are, in days, months, and years. It’s the only way I know of to be certain that the warding circle will recognize and protect you both.”

“Suppose if you’re going to identify someone who can only go by the one name…” The Doctor shrugs. “Five days, three months, nine hundred one years.”

“We’ve rolled over a day, so seven days, three months, two thousand nine hundred ninety-eight years,” Not-Jane says.

The Doctor whistles. “There’s a surprise. I didn’t actually expect to live that long.”

“Oi, we’re not that bad at—wait, does simulated time count?” Not-Jane asks.

Crowley has bloody good hearing. Whatever he’s arguing about with Michael and Gabriel doesn’t stop him from noticing the question. “Time is time,” he says over his shoulder. “If you experienced it, then it counts.”

“Oh. Bugger,” Not-Jane mutters in annoyance. “Then you need to add four billion, five hundred fifty thousand, three hundred…and yeah, twelve years exactly to mine. Spent it all in a Confession Dial. Not any fun, that.”

“Four billion…” Aziraphale snaps his jaw shut, frowns, and starts copying down the extra time into the seventh circle. Rose hopes he has enough room…and well, enough blood.

“_Who did you go and piss off?_” John asks, a tinny echo coming through the mic. Rose thinks he and Donna are heading through a narrow passage, but can’t tell if it’s metal or concrete. She used to be so good at telling the difference, at knowing where her Torchwood teams were working. Then she went and retired and forgot so much useful stuff. The Bad Wolf remembers, but Rose’s brain is still human.

Not-Jane rolls her eyes. “Rassilon.”

John doesn’t sound surprised. “_Yeah, that would do it._”

“What the hell did _he_ want?” the Doctor asks, scowling. “Aside from his apparent goal of being supremely annoying for the entirety of his resurrection. Definitely can’t leave out that part.”

“Oh, he was terrified of the old prophecy about the Hybrid fated to dethrone Gallifrey’s oldest founder, and since Rassilon was the one who decided to come back from hibernation or death or whatever it was he’d been doing for thousands of years…” Not-Jane eyes the singularity diverter and tilts her head at it. “You know, the TARDIS is going to be a bridge, all three of them. So it won’t be sitting here, and we’re going to need another power source for the diverter.”

“Sweetie, you have the attention span of a hummingbird mainlining sugary uppers,” River says bluntly.

“What? We really do need a power source! It’s a legitimate concern!”

“Wait, so Rassilon stuffed you into a Confession Dial without just asking you about the Hybrid prophecy?” Donna interrupts them. “What would be the point of that?”

“Because it was easier than having me assassinated, since most of Gallifrey’s command structure likes me more than they like him,” Not-Jane replies. “He isn’t much fond of me.”

“Did Rassilon ever get an answer to his question?” Martha asks, back off her mobile and grinning at the conversation.

“Look, I escaped the Confession Dial, took over the government, and banished him from the whole of Kasterborous,” Not-Jane says, miffed. “If Rassilon couldn’t figure out the answer to the stupid prophecy after that, then that’s definitely not my problem!”

“I should have wagered more than fifty pounds,” Aziraphale says in amusement.

Crowley scowls. “Shut. Up.”

“_You banished—you—”_ John is wheezing so hard it takes a moment for Rose to realize that he’s laughing. “_Not looking forward to the Confession Dial bit, but oh, I can’t wait to see the look on his face when that happens._”

The Doctor points at Not-Jane with his sonic. “I’m just glad I’m not going to remember that bit after we’re done here, because I don’t want to spend the next—”

“’Bout seventeen centuries? Not sure I have it down exactly,” Not-Jane supplies.

“—right. I don’t want to spend the next eighteen centuries looking forward to four point five billion years locked in a bloody virtual box.”

“All right, see, that’s what I’ve been trying to figure out since we ended up with more than one of you,” Mickey says. “With you sitting right there, how is it the version of you off with Donna doesn’t remember any of this? How come _you_ don’t?” Mickey asks Not-Jane.

“Oh, that. S’a bit of a trick that Time Lords are taught in the Academy,” the Doctor explains, sounding a bit more cheerful. Rose remembers he was always fond of explaining Time Lord culture as long as the conversation didn’t wander to other Gallifreyan things, like its people or Gallifrey no longer existing. “Our lot have been traveling in time long enough that they figured out pretty early on that it was possible to cross paths with yourself. So, we’re psychically conditioned to forget the encounter once it’s done to preserve our own timelines. Whoever is younger forgets all of it, even if it’s lurking in the subconscious somewhere. Eldest one of us remembers everything.”

Aziraphale glances up from his work with a faint smile. “Ah. So you knew which of yourselves to ring because…”

Not-Jane nods. “Because I started remembering, yeah. Not that I have all of it yet; it’s still in the process of happening.”

“_Be there in just a tic_,” Donna says through the comm. Her warning is quickly followed by the increasingly loud sounds of the TARDIS’s engine, coming in about a block down on Old Compton.

Rose freezes in place. She wants to see John—she hopes Donna _warned_ him—but she’s still also staring right at two other versions of the Doctor.

The Doctor grins at her. “What? It’s not like I’m going to off and be jealous of myself, now am I?”

Not-Jane nods, but she looks a bit more somber. “Go ahead, love. He needs this. I mean, _I_ needed it. Even when I couldn’t take it with me.”

That’s all Rose needs to hear. She waves at Jack, who gives her such a look of understanding that it makes her chest hurt. Then she’s rushing down Old Compton, ignoring the bloody déjà vu. It doesn’t matter what happened centuries ago. Same situation doesn’t even bloody well apply!

The TARDIS is solid, parked on the walkway in front of one of Soho’s many cafés, by the time Rose stumbles to a halt a full shopfront distant. She feels like she can’t breathe, gasping for air and hoping, hoping—

Then the doors are yanked open. Donna definitely warned him. That’s the Doctor a very young Rose Tyler was finally able to admit that she loved, who she _knew_ loved her back even if he couldn’t say it. That’s the bloody Time Lord she found by punching holes in reality with a cobbled-together dimensional cannon. Her Doctor and his favorite pseudonym of John, so well-worn their current iteration couldn’t leave off and still goes by Jane Smith.

He stares at her a moment, swallowing so hard that it alters the long line of his neck. “Rose.”

Rose nods. “You can go over an’ ask your other selves if you don’t believe me.”

“No, I—I believe you. I can…” The Doctor wiggles his fingers at his eyes. “I can…I know it.” He takes a step forward and pauses before his trainer hits the walkway. “No Daleks, right?”

Rose puts both hands over her mouth, trying to rein in ridiculous, half-hysterical giggling. “No Daleks. Promise.”

“Oh. Great, then!” Rose misses the mad dash part, and doesn’t care, because she blinks and then she’s finally holding him again. His long arms are holding her tight, familiar scent of his stupid hair product and buzz of artron energy and cologne remnants embedded in his blue suit filling her nose and bringing tears to her eyes. The Doctor repeats her name, over and over again, like it’s precious and sacred.

Rose squeezes his ribs and finds herself rolling her eyes while sniffing back tears. “You’re too thin, an’ I don’t mean your normal sort of skinny. Hasn’t anyone been chasing you around to make you eat a chip or three now and then?”

“Well—” the Doctor tries, but Rose can already hear his brain trying to figure out distractions.

“Don’t even start. Older-You already confessed that you haven’t been taking care of yourself. Idiot. You complete idiot.” Rose leans back and discovers that she isn’t the only one crying.

“Idiot?” The Doctor smiles and wipes her cheeks clean with his thumbs. “That’s where we’re starting off? Idiot?”

“That last time you left—you didn’t say goodbye,” Rose says. “So yeah, we’re starting right there.”

The Doctor’s smile vanishes. “If I’d said it again…that would’ve made it real. That would’ve made it permanent. If I didn’t say anything, then it was just…”

Rose hugs him again when his voice breaks. “Then it was just _See you later_. Yeah. I’ll forgive you this time, because you were right, even if you didn’t know it.”

“Bad Wolf,” he murmurs. “Spreading yourself all through time and space, including one particular Moment.”

“_The_ Moment.” She thinks about it. “You remember that bit about Gallifrey right now?”

“I remember everything right now, all I’ve ever done, because it’s sort of a cross-timelines information-sharing mess when there’s more than one of us about,” he confesses. “I won’t remember it later, but right now? Absolutely. Where were you?”

Rose grins. “Perched on a box over your head, flicking at your hair. You kept swatting at my hand.”

“Oh, that’s just—” The Doctor steps back and grabs her hand, looking torn between a sob and the brightest sort of grin. “That wasn’t very nice.”

Rose smirks at him. “I did tell you that the kissing bit was going to happen, and you’re still on with the complainin’?”

“If he starts complaining, he’ll never stop, an’ we do not have that kind of time,” Donna says, closing the TARDIS doors as she pops out to join them.

“She’s right.” Rose sighs. “We really don’t. But later…”

The Doctor dries his face with his sleeve. Then he takes a deep breath, visibly pulling himself back together. “Later. Yeah.” He takes Donna’s hand with his left hand, so that the three of them are going back down to Greek Street together. “How weird is this going to be, by the way?”

“It started out weird on Thursday, and it’s gotten _so_ much weirder since then,” Donna tells him.

“So. Very. Weird. Least you already met your Dad,” Rose teases.

The Doctor winces, briefly squeezing both eyes shut. “Ginger,” he whines.

“But it’s _your _face, and it’s driving Crowley starkers,” Donna counters smugly.

“Where is Crowley, anyway?” Rose asks, noticing at once that there’s only one tall ginger lurking about. The Doctor’s hand tightens on hers when he sees Israfil, but it’s Rose catching sight of her first Doctor and Not-Jane that reminds her to go back to calling him John in her head.

The question is answered a moment later when Not-Jane leans around the side of the TARDIS to look down the south side of Greek Street. “Where did you off and get _that_?”

“You said you needed another power source!” Crowley yells back, and then Rose can see him emerging from the shadows, a thick conduit line slung over his shoulder. “Now you’ve got another power source. If you start complaining about getting what you wanted, though, I’m going to put the bloody thing back!”

“Not…complaining…just…” Not-Jane blinks several times and pulls a face. “Right, yeah, never mind. Can the city’s electrical grid keep up with that sort of sudden power drain?”

“It can after the 2003 London Blackout. A lot of work went into the system afterwards to make certain that sort of cascading failure could never happen again.” Crowley drops the conduit line. “And trust me, I really did try.”

“Why?” the Doctor asks, more curiosity than anything else.

Crowley lifts one shoulder. “Why not?”

“Works for me.” Not-Jane purses her lips at the conduit line. “That’s a city main, so…if they reconfigured the system to prevent catastrophic cascading failure, then it should work for a few seconds, at least.”

“A few—” Mickey breaks off and stares up at the sky for a moment. “A few _seconds_.”

“Sure. I mean, theoretically, it doesn’t take long to divert a singularity, anyway,” the Doctor says.

“Theoretically.” Mickey turns around and points at John. “That’s it, I’m resorting to asking you, and that means we’re all in the thick of it now. How long’s it take to divert the power of a black hole from a planet to somewhere else out in space?”

“Hello to you, too,” John returns dryly. “And that depends: you want the honest answer, or a reassuring lie?”

“I’ll take the reassuring lie,” Donna says flatly before Mickey can answer.

“Theoretically, it’s instantaneous, so a few seconds is plenty of time.”

The Doctor glances at Not-Jane, who glances down at the conduit, Crowley, John, and then sighs. “Sure, why not? I doubt UK Power is gonna mind so much if we cause a city-wide blackout. I mean, the sun’ll be up by then, hospitals are getting first crack at the evac…yeah. Let’s stick with instantaneous.”

“All right, then!” John releases Rose and Donna in order to clasp his hands together in front of him. “There are thousands of Racnoss heading this way, so I’d really like to know what the plan is before a bunch of alien spiders spawned before time begin crawling up out of the ground to eat us.”

* * * *

“You sure ’bout this?” Wilf asks, letting Israfil help him up the stairs to old Aziraphale’s cozy flat above the bookshop. “The distance won’t hurt anything, will it?”

“Not these. I’m envious and want lots of them,” Crowley says after he steps into Wilf’s old bedroom. “You being based elsewhere won’t interfere with a thing, and maybe Donna will calm the fuck down.”

“And keep you safe, hence the calming her down,” Israfil adds. “Crowley, I assume you know where we’re going.”

“Hope it’s not right back to Donna’s place in Chiswick,” Wilf attempts to joke. “That’s within the circle of the M25. Don’t fancy the idea of getting stuck behind it, whatever it is you lot are up to.”

“Hope you don’t hate Sheffield, then.”

Israfil glances over at him in surprise. “Sheffield, huh? Isn’t that where my niece says her friends are hanging about these days?”

“I’d call it a bloody coincidence, but it would be a bad pun, and not true.” Crowley bites back a fierce yawn that wants to eat his face. “Two months ago, I picked up an oversized and upgraded modernist home for a steal—not literally!” Crowley snaps at Israfil, who grins, unrepentant. “It was the site of a double homicide a few years back. Sat on the market long enough that the bank holding ownership realized it was never going to sell unless they significantly lowered the asking price. Then it still didn’t sell. They were glad to see me when I turned up to make an offer. Well. They were glad to see my money.”

“Double homicide?” Wilf asks curiously. “How’d that happen, then?”

Crowley shrugs. “I didn’t go poking around for details. The blood was cleaned up, the building is up to code, and it’s not haunted. That’s all I cared about. Either way…” He raises his arms and holds them out.

He hopes he can do this. He hadn’t spent six months in Hell when he moved this room from Chiswick to London, and now he’s aiming for bloody Sheffield and a building he only has a passing acquaintance with. There are plenty of spots on the second storey to put it, though, so that works in his favor.

Crowley has wrapped the whole of Wilf’s room with his will once before, not long ago, and it still feels familiar. Then he draws in a breath, tells reality to slide properly sideways, and takes them somewhere new.

“Crowley—CROWLEY!” Israfil is yelling in his face. Crowley tries to raise his hand to make his idiot brother stop yelling and realizes he can’t.

He’s slumped on his knees on the floor of Wilf’s bedroom. The only thing holding him upright is Israfil’s grip on Crowley’s shoulders.

Crowley’s hands are alight with golden cracks marring his corporation. They’re the exact sort of cracks that happened when he tried to hold Time at bay for too long.

“th’Fuck,” Crowley slurs.

“Brother. Balance.” Israfil’s voice is quiet now that Crowley is looking at him again, and reminders lurk in his words.

Balance. The first War.

Usually it was Raphael wearing himself down to nothing, coming so close to cracking himself apart just to keep everyone else alive. Zaherael had been his fulcrum, the strength that kept Raphael balanced.

Crowley manages a nod. “Yeah. Okay.” He watches as Israfil clasps their hands together, and then Israfil’s forehead is pressed to his.

“Breathe, Brother,” Israfil whispers. “We are distinct and yet we are one. Your strength is mine; my strength is yours.”

Crowley feels the surge of energy through his palms and gasps. He’s never experienced their exchanges from this side of things. It was always him providing, not receiving.

It’s bloody _odd_.

The cracks are gone. Crowley feels like he can breathe again without collapsing. Might be able to skip out on the nap this time, too, but that’s iffy.

Crowley appreciates Wilf so bloody much when the old man ignores the stupid questions about who’s okay, or who did what. Instead, Wilf asks, “Is there anything you can do to buck up a bit more there, lad?”

“If you touch the ley lines before Samael or the Racnoss do, it would be safe,” Israfil suggests. “Don’t tie yourself into the system, mind, but you could use the residual energy that they radiate.”

“I should’ve done that hours ago,” Crowley concedes. He closes his eyes and finds a tiny golden thread drifting away from the thick cord of a primary ley line. He checks first to make certain that it all remains untouched by demons or by stupid planet-eating spiders. Then Crowley touches golden thread with his fingertips, asking for what can be spared, refusing to take what this planet can’t afford to give.

“Better?” Israfil asks.

Crowley realizes he’s been staring at nothing for a few minutes and shakes off the last of the fugue. Ugh. “Better, yeah.” He swallows and thinks he can get through the rest of this day now. “Wilf, are you set up comfortably?”

Wilf smiles and offers them a vague salute. His hand still trembles, but it’s not nearly as bad as when they first met a few days back. “I’m comfortable, I did a comm check while you were busy studyin’ my wallpaper, and if all else fails, that’s what a good catheter is for.”

“Wow, I really didn’t need to hear that last part,” Crowley grumbles. “C’mon downstairs, Israfil. We’re not done yet.”

Israfil lets out an appreciative whistle when he discovers that the entire western wall of the first storey is nothing but glass. “No throwing stones in this house, I suppose.” The east wall is glass, too, but Crowley installed blackout panels to keep from being blinded by too-bright early morning sun.

“It’s all bulletproof.” Crowley ignores the banded stacks of post on the table, most of it junk. The cleaning service must have brought in from the mail slot at the front door instead of leaving it to pile up. “And it’s tinted. We can see out; others can’t see in. Not the point, though. Go fetch Aziraphale and Ba‘al, will you?” He hesitates. “And my kid, too. Doesn’t matter which version. They can share the location between them easily enough.”

Israfil returns with Aziraphale, Ba‘al, and Not-Jane. Crowley thinks that was probably a deliberate choice on his brother’s part, but he doesn’t mind. “Where are we?” Aziraphale asks at once, glancing around at the near-empty house in curiosity. The kitchen is modernist to the current decade’s standards, if very empty. The rest of the first storey hosts a dining table that came with the house, a white leather sofa, grey carpeting, a curving staircase, and nothing else to distinguish it except the windows. It’s really too big, but Crowley didn’t buy it for its size, just the investment potential.

Or maybe he’s outsmarted himself again. He hopes not.

“Sheffield. Or more specifically, a safe fallback point,” Crowley replies. “One you all need to share with the others.”

“I know this place,” Not-Jane says, mouth quirking. “Local lot all think it’s haunted.”

Crowley rolls his eyes. “Trust me, I’d know if there were bloody ghosts lurking about. Look. Just worry about having a safehouse, all right? If things go to shit in Soho, there is enough room upstairs for everyone, Wilf is already in place, and oh yeah, if you own anything in Soho you don’t want to lose, might want to bring it here. Just in case.”

Ba‘al really needs to work on developing more expressions aside from Neutral and Wrathful. “Why? What will go wrong in Soho?”

“Aside from it being invaded by thousands of Racnoss? Pick something,” Crowley retorts sarcastically. “I—look, nothing is definite. The Doctor’s right. Things are in such a state of flux right now that it’s a bloody mess to try to look at it at all, but…I keep seeing my brother’s staff fall. I keep hearing you scream, Ba‘al. That doesn’t mean anyone’s dead or dying, but I’m not exactly fucking thrilled about it.”

“I’m acting as your anchor when you face Samael. It could be exhaustion,” Israfil offers. Crowley nods, because even after topping off on ambient energy, he has no idea what the battle against Samael is going to do to him—to any of them.

“I do not panic,” Ba‘al mutters resentfully, but there is a worry line between their brows.

“PTSD doesn’t care about panic,” Crowley reminds them, which only makes Ba‘al’s resentfulness skyrocket. Or plummet. Whichever.

“I’ll let the others know about this place. Let myself know. Oh, whatever.” Not-Jane holds her hand out to Israfil. “Lift back to Soho, please?” Israfil smiles just before they vanish.

“Will Lucifer be able to enter this dwelling?” Ba‘al asks, their expression right back to neutral again.

“As long as Lucy sticks to the rules about behaving herself and not tempting anyone while she’s a guest here? Yeah. Probably.” Crowley glances around. “Not sure she’s going to have time to bother, not if we discorporate a bunch of demons and send them right back Downstairs for Hell to shove in a queue.”

Ba‘al nods and vanishes in a puff of black smoke. Crowley holds out his hand to Aziraphale, relieved when his angel accepts it. “I need to make a quick trip to my flat for a real pair of shoes. Care to join me?”

Aziraphale smiles. “Always, my dear.”

The moment they’re in his flat, Crowley wastes no time at all in pressing Aziraphale up against the wall. Aziraphale moans against his lips when Crowley kisses him; Crowley takes that as a welcome invitation and thrusts his tongue inside Aziraphale’s mouth. It’s always fascinating, to taste-scent everything, to feel the glide of Aziraphale’s tongue until the primal intoxication of that movement becomes overwhelming.

Crowley breaks off the kiss, gasps, and buries his face against Aziraphale’s shoulder. More scent-taste, cologne and old paper, bergamot, a bit of softened dust, chalk from writing the portal into existence, and the interesting tang of his corporation’s sweat. Beneath that is sweetness and salt, so many layers of what makes Aziraphale himself.

Aziraphale wraps his arms around Crowley. “Are you all right, dear?”

Crowley shakes his head. “Nope. I’m pretty much terrified that we’re all going to die in a few hours.”

“You did say everything was in flux,” Aziraphale says quietly. His arms tighten around Crowley’s ribs until they creak, but Crowley doesn’t care. He needed this, needed to ground himself in Aziraphale, his only constant for over six thousand years. Crowley runs his hands along Aziraphale’s back, his shoulders, his arms, the soft curve of his hips, and then touches the wiry softness of Aziraphale’s hair. He is going to hoard every detail, every texture, every scent-taste, every whisper. No matter who lives or who might die, Crowley is going to remember this moment. He wants the chance to take it out and savor it on quiet evenings, or when he spends dark nights among the stars.

It helps that Crowley is practiced at this sort of memorization. He did it for six thousand years with every little opportunity Aziraphale ever granted him.

“Do you think this will go badly?” Aziraphale asks in a low murmur.

“I don’t _know_!” Crowley responds, an edge of frustration in his voice. He keeps seeing Israfil’s staff hit the ground. That hasn’t changed in several hours. “I just want you to be careful. Well—careful as you can be, anyway, what with a bunch of idiot demons and Racnoss running about.”

Crowley and Israfil are so tied up in each other now, a side effect of carrying his brother’s soul around in his heart for millennia. When they were first created, one twin’s death wouldn’t have doomed the other, but Mother warned them that might not be true any longer. If Crowley dies, Israfil might die with him—or vice versa. Crowley suspects She only used the word _might_ in order to give them some hope of living through it. He’s just not sure he would want to.

“I’ll send my books on to Sheffield, then, and maybe a few other things, besides. Perhaps I’ll leave them in one of those rooms you mentioned on the second storey,” Aziraphale says, and Crowley hears everything Aziraphale leaves unspoken: _I trust you_, and _I hope you’re wrong_, and _Thank you for letting me safeguard what I love_, and _I just want to safeguard _you, _dearest_.

“Probably a good idea.” Crowley draws in another deep breath of Aziraphale’s taste-scent and steps back. “I need to help my kid find a suitable spot for a diverted black hole. You—you know what I care about in my flat. Would you send my things on to Sheffield after you collect your books?”

“Of course I will.” Aziraphale subjects him to another kiss, chaste and gentle, and then runs his fingers through Crowley’s hair until he reaches the tangling ends. “I did miss your long hair, my dear.”

“I know.” Crowley captures Aziraphale’s hand and presses a kiss to his knuckles. Then he leaves Aziraphale to collect the books he already hid in Crowley’s flat to keep them away from River Song.

Crowley doesn’t go back down to the street, not yet. He goes to the roof of his building, pushing open the door to the rooftop garden when the wards recognize him and let him pass.

He sits down on the steps, letting the shape-shifted shoes on his feet fade until his own bare feet are resting on the first step of the watery pool. He breathes in citrus, perfuming flowers, moist earth—water. Life.

He snaps his fingers and conjures socks along with the best pair of shoes he owns from the closet downstairs, drying his feet before putting them on. Then he tilts his head back to look up at the stars. London isn’t dark enough to give him the best view, but a few points of light still shine in spite of the city’s best efforts to blot them out.

Crowley thinks about it for a moment before he snaps his fingers again, summoning a glassed-in pillar candle full of black wax and swirling, multi-colored glitter that’s almost mindful of a proper starry sky. Adam got it for him in the spring, the time Crowley and Israfil vaguely named as their birthday.

Might be, anyway. Not that it matters so much. It’s not like they had an active calendar at the time.

Crowley doesn’t want to concentrate on those details long enough to figure out exactly how old he really is, anyway. The hints he’s gotten in the past few days are bad enough.

He lights the pillar candle with a thought and sets it down on the tiled edge of the pool before redirecting his attention upwards. “So, uhm, I’m still not all that great about asking for things. You already know that, but I’m trying. Trying to figure out what to ask for, when it’s right to do so. That sort of thing. I have no idea if I’m succeeding, but you haven’t popped into my flat to give me a good telling off, so maybe I’m doing all right.

“I know it’s okay to ask for this, though. I know something isn’t going to go right this morning, even if I don’t know what comes after that. I trust Aziraphale and Raphael to be able to look after themselves, but…”

Crowley draws in a deep breath. “You once entrusted me to guard over a part of Your creation. To guard Time and the potential infinity really represents. If I die—truly die—then grant that guardianship to my daughter. She’s already been doing the job as it is, and on a universal scale, so it’s not like anything would change for her. Knowing that You’d be looking after her a bit more, that You would be there for her if something went truly wrong…please, Mother. If I have to lose my child now, or she has to lose me, then grant me that bit of peace.”

Crowley studies the dancing candle flame, a tiny, gentle reminder of the fire of Creation. “I loved You even when I hated You. Not like You don’t know that already or anything, but I wanted to say it. Just in case.”

2:40 a.m.

St. James Park, London

Jack listens to the Torchwood One operative stationed at Downing Street report in, feeling antsy about not being there for the singularity diverter’s completion. They’re at the point where they have to find coordinates for the singularity to be diverted to, and that part, Jack can’t help with. Where the hell do you put a brand new black hole, anyway?

Apparently to get the answer to that, you ask a Celestial who watched the universe form. Not that Crowley looked to be enjoying the hunt for an available spot, but Crowley never looks as if he enjoys much of anything.

Jack tries not to judge, though. He met the man when they were already under a hell of a lot of stress. When the Earth isn’t being threatened with extinction by demons or thousands of Racnoss, maybe Crowley is less of an ass.

“And we just got word. Buckingham is clear of the Family,” Thompson says in Jack’s ear. “That means everyone on the royal list is clear of Central London and on their way to the countryside, sir.”

“Good to hear. What about Downing Street? Parliament?”

Thompson makes a strangled sound of displeasure. “Downing Street is almost done packing up necessities. Once the last group leaves, we’ll be setting up temporary headquarters near the M4 in Slough, sir. Waking members of Parliament who reside within London’s borders has apparently proven to be no fun at all for the British military.”

Jack rolls his eyes. “They’re being too nice.” At least the Family and Downing Street will be safe. If they lose sections of Parliament, they’ll still have the PM and his cabinet. “Let me know when you’re on your way out of London, Thompson. I’m afraid you’re stuck with the PM and his entourage for the duration.”

“Lucky me, sir,” Thompson says dryly. “I’ll send you updates when I have them.”

“Good luck,” Jack says, and turns his attention back to the crowd gathering in St. James Park. It’s a familiar landmark, easy to find, and more than large enough to host them all.

A lot more UNIT-uniformed “volunteers” and Torchwood operatives turned up in Central London than Jack was originally hoping for. The sight of so many people ready to get to work makes him feel a hell of a lot less frantic. Jack might even say he’s confident that they can pull this off before zero-hour hits, but he doesn’t want to jinx it.

“Everyone, meet everyone,” Jack says to shortcut the process. “Former UNIT types, thanks for turning up, because we _really_ need you right now, and I don’t give a damn what Britain or the UN thinks. Torchwood, you know the game, and you know the stakes, so play nice. The old rivalries are bullshit, and they don’t exist here.

“If you’re in a uniform, be good and follow orders, because we literally don’t have time for anything else. Your bosses are myself, Jack Harkness, Torchwood Three, and also Rose Tyler, here, also of Torchwood, different branch.” Rose waves to make certain the gathered blend of ex-UNIT soldiers and Torchwood operatives can see her, but doesn’t smile. “The Doctor—yes, _that _Doctor, no time for groupies, we’re moving right along.” Jack expects a bit of the old smirk; it’s a shock when the Doctor’s only response to being pointed out is grim, dark-eyed expectation. “Lieutenant Colonel Magambo, formerly of UNIT, currently under my watch and here on Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart’s say-so, so don’t give her any shit, especially since the Brigadier is paying attention by remote broadcast. Beside me are Mickey Smith and Martha Jones, co-heads of Torchwood One. I’m going to be coordinating your movements, but that’s because I’m the guy with the map. I’ll still be down in the tunnels, doing the dirty work with the rest of you.”

Jack eyes the Celestial group, who are ignoring the fact that over half of the gathered soldiers are staring at them. It’s the armor, he finally decides, but even Jack has to admit there is something just the slightest bit off about the four of them, and not in the way that typically screams _alien_. “More introductions: this is Gabriel, Saraquel, Israfil, Michael—yes, I’m aware, and you’d better respect _his_ gender—Lucy, and Ba‘al—mind their gender, too, thanks, it’s the twenty-first century, for fuck’s sake. They’re not big on modern weaponry, but that armor isn’t just for show. While the rest of us are herding you lot to the right places, those six are going to be encouraging our civvies to exit Central London by way of three different TARDISes. Yes, that’s the Doctor’s ship, and no, I don’t have time to explain to you why there are currently three of them. Two of those ships are already in place for the evac, situated west and north. The Doctor here will be taking the eastern evac route once we’re done with the briefing, but first, we map out how we’re going to cut off central London from the rest of the city.”

“Encouraging,” one of the Torchwood One types repeats, all but using air quotes.

“Yes, encouraging, as in a mid-grade telepathic field, Jenkins. No, we don’t have time to argue the morality of it,” Jack snaps. “Besides, this is encouragement, not mind control. If someone wants to sit in their kitchen and sip tea until the Racnoss come to eat them, that’s their decision. Also, don’t insult the six people here who have battle experience against the things that are gonna be trying to kill us in a couple of hours. Israfil is a physician, as is Mrs. Jones-Smith here, so if someone does something stupid and takes off a finger, you won’t bleed to death.

“Remember that we’ve got two different enemy combatants inbound. If the expected group of friends turns up first, they’re all going to be a bit preoccupied by keeping that other lot the hell away from us. Take advantage of their presence and expertise while we have it. Questions?”

Jack waits only a few seconds before he holds up his left arm and engages the wrist strap, projecting a blue line map of Central London’s Underground tunnels and access points Luke put together for him. On the street level are three large green rectangles in the east, west, and north. “Bad news, good news time. The bad news is that the Racnoss are teleporters. The good news is that they need to be able to see or smell where they’re going. The other bit of good news is thanks to the way London was built, we know where the Racnoss are going to emerge—right here in good ol’ Central London. They may or may not stick with Soho, given that another batch of pricks are going to come along and put a giant damned hole in Greek Street, but we seal off Soho first, just in case.”

“The other good news is that the Racnoss are bleedin’ lazy,” Donna says, sounding so entirely unimpressed that she immediately earns a bit of military respect without even trying. “They won’t dig their own tunnels. They’re going to use ours, and any other access tunnel marked on that map there. That’s what’s big enough to let a Racnoss crawl through. Be glad they’re oversized even when they’ve just hatched, or all the communication lines and pipes running through the city would have us all buggered before breakfast.”

“Those green boxes? That’s where you’re herding the civvies, and when the order comes down, they’re _your_ exit point, too, because there won’t be another,” Jack says. “I mean it. That’s your way out, or you’re not getting out.

“Now: we can slow the Racnoss down, but we can’t stop them. Slowing them down is the point, because the rest of London needs time to get beyond the circle of the M25. The longer we keep the Racnoss underground, though, the better chance everyone has. Doctor?”

The Doctor points at tunnels, one after another, leaving red marks along the blue diagram as he does so. “Collapsing these tunnels will keep the Racnoss from spreading through the Underground beyond Central London’s border. Once that’s done, it’s the street-level access that’s the problem.”

Jack presses a button and marks every single street-level access point in red. “Those are your secondary targets, but that doesn’t make them unimportant. The longer we delay, the less chance there is of anyone in Central London being eaten.”

“You’re being literal, right?” Wallace asks, looking faintly green. “The eating part.”

“Yep, and not in that happy fun way, either,” Jack answers. “Doc, please field this one?”

The Doctor presses his lips together. “If Magambo could remember the last time we worked together—sorry about that, not my doing; well, not yet, anyway—then I’d tell you that there are other creatures in the universe who do what the Racnoss do, consuming entire planets, but they’re not malicious. For those creatures, it’s just instinct and survival.

“The Racnoss are ancient, highly intelligent beings who eat to survive, and they don’t stop until all the food is gone.” The Doctor grimaces. “They’re aware of the damage they cause, the lives they destroy—and worse, they don’t care. _They revel in it_. If you know my reputation, you know how I feel about guns…but I’m going to be the first to tell you that if you encounter a Racnoss? Don’t hesitate.”

That sets most of UNIT and half of Torchwood to muttering. Jack feels an uneasy flutter in his gut. The only other creature in the universe that the Doctor ever warned Jack not to hesitate to destroy was a Dalek, but at least the Daleks wouldn’t fucking_ eat them_.

“I take it the Racnoss are easy to distinguish, then,” Kate says from her remote feed.

“Twice the height of the tallest human, looks like someone took the idea of a centaur, got confused, and gave a red-skinned humanoid the body of a spider instead of a horse. They’re a bit hard to miss,” the Doctor replies.

“Vulnerabilities?” Magambo asks, her expression set in stone.

The Doctor nods at her. “Their leg joints and their humanoid parts. Try not to miss, and try to stay out of range. Their arms are so sharp that body armor is useless against them.”

“If they get topside before we seal off the Underground, how are we keeping the Racnoss out of the rest of London?” one of the younger UNIT kids asks. Jack is glad she kept her name badge on her uniform just so he knows who she is.

Jack grins. “Easy, Podder. We’re setting the A501, the A202, Vauxhall Bridge Road, the A3204, the A201, Tower Bridge Road, the A100, and the A1210 on fire. Oh, and a smidge of the Thames, but that’s really not the worst thing we’ve ever done to the river.”

“That—that is the opposite definition of easy!” Magambo sputters.

Jack’s grin widens as he glances at Ba‘al, who looks decidedly pleased with themselves. “It all depends on who you know.”

“How is bloody fire going to keep the Racnoss from crossing out into greater London? Or anyone, really?” Limebert-Davies asks. “The roads aren’t that wide, sir.”

“The fire that will block the path of the Racnoss is called Hellfire. It burns at higher, more destructive temperatures than the human flames you are accustomed to,” Ba‘al says in their slightly accented, toneless voice. “The Racnoss will not fear it forever, but it will deter them for a useful amount of time.”

“Once we have an official all-clear on the evacuation of Central London, our TARDIS taxies are moving,” Jack says before anyone can question Ba‘al. “North, east, and west again for population density, but the most important thing? We’ll be joining with the rest of our UNIT volunteers, Torchwood, and the British military to get as many civilians as possible clear of the M25. Trapping the Racnoss in Central London _should_ give us the time we need to clear greater London, especially with the TARDIS taxies cutting a few corners and moving people five to seven kilometers in the time it takes to walk a few meters.”

Conners whistles in appreciation. “Yeah, that definitely helps a bit. Thanks, you lot. My family’s all out near Stratford, and none of us own a bleedin’ car.”

“Same,” too many voices add.

“If you can ring them up, call your families and tell them to get the hell out of London,” Jack says. “No packing, just grab some ID and move out ASAP. The first quarantine line will be shut down for traffic—either you’re crossing it on foot or using one of the crossover streets to make your way along. Same thing goes for the M25, our secondary quarantine line—no traffic allowed unless it’s crossing directly over that horror show.

“Don’t forget: the secondary quarantine line is non-negotiable. If you’re not out of London by the time the secondary fire on the M25 ignites, your ass is stuck here, and you’ll have to figure out how to hold out against the Racnoss until strike teams from the air take them out—and I have no idea how long it will take to organize that kind of action, so move fast.”

“You think these Racnoss things are going to make it out of the Central London quarantine,” Miller says, swallowing hard.

“No, we _know_ they’re going to make it out of the first quarantine zone. That’s why we’re doing this,” Jack retorts. “Keep it together. There are a lot of people in Central London who need to be moved out of this zone. Prioritize the civilians, but don’t forget that you’re people, too, and I like it when you’re all still alive.”

“Sir?” Jack turns his head so he can find the speaker, a taller kid in Torchwood black from London. “Are we going to lose London, Captain Harkness?”

Jack clenches his jaw. “No.” They’re going to be cutting this so damned close. “Not if we all do our jobs.” He points upward when the first emergency klaxons sound, so reminiscent of the Blitz that it gives him chills before the pre-recorded emergency declaration begins to play. “The Framework has just activated MEG and all associated branches. They’ve got orders from Downing Street to listen and work with us, but don’t forget that the MEG groups _and_ our lovely citizens have been training and prepping for potential London evacuations for nearly twenty years now. They know what they’re doing, and if you hear someone say they’ve got a better idea, you’d better damned well listen to them.

“Now check your comms to find out who your commanding officer is for the duration, and get moving. We’ve got work to do.”


	24. Evacuation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some things require miraculous intervention. Fortunately, there are a bunch of angels hanging around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cheer-read by @norcumi! I've given this one re-read but I'm bloody tired so it's going up as-is. Try not to point and laugh too hard at the errors when you let me know; I did my best.
> 
> See the end for potential trigger warnings (there are direct spoilers), especially if you live in/near London, UK.

Donna runs her hands along familiar controls and tries not to fret. Everyone is safe as houses, for the moment—except maybe the lot who are busy blowing up access to the Underground. All she has to do is wait, making certain the TARDIS maintains her position in Clerkenwell so everyone can march right on through to Finsbury Park. There are meant to be public transport vehicles waiting, and of course everyone outside of the first quarantine ring can take the Tube out of London until that’s not safe anymore.

The first quarantine ring around Central London is already on fire, thanks to Ba’al. From what Donna is hearing from the TARDIS, the ship thinks the hellfire is a bit hostile, but it can’t hurt her. The TARDIS dubs it an annoying tickle and proceeds to ignore it.

Donna doubts that the black fire Crowley mentioned for the M25’s quarantine line will be harmless, not even to a TARDIS. Something about Lucy’s face, and Crowley’s aversion to talking about it…well, they might as well both have been screaming a warning. Crowley said he designed the M25, but Donna knows there has to be more to it than just endless, maddening traffic jams.

Then Crowley pops into the hidden control room. Donna lets out an indignant squeak before she punches him in the shoulder. “Oi, you! Announce yourself or something next time!”

“How?” Crowley asks snidely, and briefly takes off his sunglasses to rub at his eyes.

“Things going all right back in Soho?” Donna asks, curious as to why Crowley would be here instead of out hunting for new places for a black hole to live.

“Better than anyone expected, really,” Crowley answers, sliding his glasses back on. “I found a place for our new singularity to live. If you’re allowed to use the term ‘boonies’ in space, then that spot definitely qualifies.”

“That’s good.”

Crowley nods. “Singularity diverter doohickey is finished, too. Well, except for trying to get a Time Lord-built device to talk to London’s electrical grid, and programming in the singularity’s new location, but that part is not my job. How’re you doing?”

“Me?” Donna doesn’t even need to think about it. “I’m bloody scared, sunshine. You?”

“Scared shitless,” Crowley agrees. “Does this saving-the-planet bit ever get any less fucking stressful?”

“Not in my experience,” Donna says. “I think that’s meant to be part of the fun, but I’d have to give it another go to see if that’s really a thing or not.”

“Right.” Crowley reaches out, touches Donna’s shoulder—and when Donna doesn’t shove him off—gives her a brief hug. “You be careful, all right?”

“Pfft, course I will.” Donna hugs him back and doesn’t voice a bit of the fear and doubt screaming in her head. “I’m not the one about to challenge Samael to a staring contest.”

* * * *

The Doctor strolls around the console room after the interior reconfiguration is done. He’s put the TARDIS down in the midst of Potters Fields Park, right on the southern bank of the Thames. It’s over seven kilometers to reach Caning Town from here, and it’s stretching this iteration of the TARDIS to her maximum dimensional capabilities…but he convinced her to pull it off. Took a bit of an argument, though. It’s his TARDIS, yeah, but this isn’t _his_ TARDIS. Donna has that one, all of them wanting to be sure that if she was piloting a ship, it was one that knew her already. It’s the same reason that River Song—and that hurts so much he can’t even dwell on it—is piloting the TARDIS accustomed to his now-female self.

That’s the trick of it, the accustoming. This is the TARDIS as she knew him when he had his previous face, and even knowing the stakes, she’s miffed to be doing things out of order. He argued with her that she was a time ship, and they did _everything_ out of order, but she’s still a bit tetchy about it all.

Tetchy or not, the TARDIS is nice enough to warn him that he’s about to get a visitor. He just isn’t expecting it to be one of the ginger twins—definitely Crowley. Israfil’s hair is too much curling perfection; Crowley’s hair is sporting sweat and dust from digging around in a utility junction for electrical conduits.

It fits, him doing that sort of thing. _They_ fit. The Doctor just doesn’t know what the hell to do about it. He hopes he has better ideas by the time he’s regenerated into a she.

“You look like you’re staring at a ghost,” Crowley observes.

“Yeah, well. The others got a bit more adjustment time to suddenly having a father. And an uncle,” the Doctor belatedly realizes.

“Israfil adores you, in all of your current forms, so don’t worry about that,” Crowley says dryly. “He’s also still mocking me, but he keeps forgetting that I excel at revenge.”

“Right. Yeah.” The Doctor rubs the back of his neck. “Why are you here, anyway?”

“Not-Jane, your eldest self, she gave a few details here and there about what’s happening right now—for you, specifically.” Crowley leans against the railing, his gold eyes flickering upwards when the TARDIS sends out a telepathic pulse of reassurance. “I’m a Healer, Doctor. She was honest with me and still left out most of it, because all I can hear when we’re standing together like this is you screaming.”

The Doctor clenches his jaw and scowls. “Plenty of reasons for that.”

“Oh, I imagine there are.” Crowley’s voice is soft, softer than the Doctor knows how to pitch his own voice, even though they sound exactly the same. “When this nonsense is over with, don’t go darting off the moment you think the exits are clear. Stick around for a day. Some of these people want to talk to you, and maybe when that’s done, it’ll be a bit quieter inside your head.”

“Not sure that’ll do me much good. I know I’m so close to losing this face. To regenerating.” The Doctor feels a visceral distaste for the idea, an absolute lack of desire to switch forms. He hasn’t had this face for very long, not in the grand scheme of things, and God, isn’t he allowed to _want_ things?

“Maybe it won’t matter,” Crowley grants him. “Maybe it will. I don’t have any idea what happens to you, what moves you along to the face with the chin and a really uncomfortable love of the fez, but if you won’t hang about for yourself, then do it for them. Don’t leave them behind without doing it properly this time. I think Martha in particular would figure out how to make Brothel Boy’s vortex manipulator travel in time again just to hunt you down and beat you over the head with it.”

That makes the Doctor crack a smile, much as he doesn’t want to. “Yeah. She probably would—wait; did you just call Jack _Brothel Boy?_”

* * * *

Setting up the TARDIS to act as a rather long bridge on the outside (while remaining a rather short corridor on the inside) isn’t a difficulty. River Song has understood the TARDIS and all her beautiful quirks from the first moment she flew her, so very long ago during a rather mental—and fun—side trip to Nazi Germany. She’s set the TARDIS down on the west side of Mayfair for the Central London entrance; after a mere five meters through the ship, an exit will deposit the locals in Kensington, where every bit of public transport available is waiting to ferry them the remaining twenty-one kilometers over the M25’s border.

The perception filter adjustments gave her the most difficulty, but it’s now set up to resemble a transit entrance. It’s not much fond of mimicking one, but River knows how to sweet-talk the TARDIS. She never would have successfully pranked her darling husband for literal centuries regarding that nonsense about a parking brake if she wasn’t capable of convincing others of pretty much anything her heart desired.

River flinches a little bit when one of the ginger twins unexpectedly teleports into the console room. The TARDIS welcomes Crowley with a gentle pulse of delight at his presence, and River relaxes. If the TARDIS trusts him, then she’ll do the same. For now.

“How can I help you?” River asks. “I imagine it wasn’t easy to find the primary console room, especially given where I put it.”

“I wasn’t looking for a room, I was looking for you,” Crowley replies, briefly resting his hand on one of the crystalline columns growing from floor to ceiling. “Makes for a rather direct trip. Can you do me a solid and hold still for a moment?”

“What? Why?” River asks, but his answer is to become a blur of movement. He jabs her in the forehead with one of his long, bony fingers and then steps back before River can think to draw a weapon. “What on _earth_ was that all about?” she asks, outraged.

“Things are going to happen too fast,” Crowley says, making River realize that the perception filter over his angular features is gone. He has incredible golden eyes with vertical pupils, his body long and gangly but not lacking in grace. “The memory-fuzzing trick that you and Not-Jane had planned for? You won’t have time. This was more efficient.”

“What was it, then?” River rubs at that spot on her forehead, which still feels tingly. “If you’re meant to be hiding from me, revealing your face is certainly not—oh!” She grins as one of the early morning’s secrets slots into place. “You’re the Doctor’s father!”

“Seriously? That’s what you mention first?” Crowley rolls his eyes. “Yes, I am, and please don’t ask for other details, because it’s bloody _weird_. As to what I did to you just now? Trying to hide everything behind perception filters and such is just—it’s stupid, pointless, and the filters might not hold up if one of us doing the filtering falls on our face.”

“Or dies,” River adds.

Crowley sneers in disdain. “I’d rather be a demon again than let Samael kill me, and I’m not saying that lightly, because I know exactly how much it sucks to work for Below without clout to cushion the blows. Anyway: no more filters, no more hiding…not until you leave.”

River takes a breath and mentally acclimates. It’s a useful gift. “And what happens when I leave? I’m assuming I’ll still need to be out of here in a timely fashion.”

“Ugh, terrible pun, don’t,” Crowley mutters. “You can probably hold off until 4:30 instead of 4:00, but yeah, Wolf Girl will be replacing you at this ship’s controls so you don’t accidentally end up dead too soon. After you leave here, you’ll remember these events, and you’ll remember that the Doctor was involved, but the rest of it…” He shrugs. “Your brain will tell you that others were here, and what they did, but carrying that knowledge about is dangerous, so you’re not going to remember it until it’s safe. Which isn’t a lie, by the way. It’s not actually all that safe to know as much as you do about Celestials, Celestial politics, and so much else that’s going on. Today has been bloody stupid for the sheer amount of nonsense that’s fallen out of the woodwork.”

River gives him a dry look. “You did all of that just by prodding my forehead for a second with your finger.”

“Healer,” Crowley says, as if that’s all the explanation she needs. “So, since I’m going to miss your exit? When you eventually die, people might turn up with contracts and job offers in regards to what you do with your afterlife. Read everything carefully, negotiate hard, and don’t accept anything less than the best, because they deserve to suffer for it.”

River can’t help but laugh. “And which team do you think I should be batting for, if that’s an option?”

“That depends entirely on what’s being offered.” Crowley smiles, an expression that is more openly fond than anything River is used to seeing on other people’s faces. “Take care of yourself, Melody Pond,” he says, and vanishes from the control room.

River blinks a few times and then smiles again. “Thanks for the hint, darling.” Traveling back five or six decades to have another visit with Mum and Dad in New York before she pops back to the 51st century is a wonderful idea.

Then the first evacuees are setting foot on the TARDIS, completely unaware of the alien metal beneath their feet. River’s attention is immediately locked on them, and on the TARDIS, who sometimes has her own ideas on where people ought to be going.

* * * *

Nat is so bloody glad he chose to set up shop in Redhill, outside the M25. It makes for a hell of a commute, but he uses the Tube to avoid the M25, so it’s only cats-awful if he needs to take a car into London.

Also makes it easier to coordinate the Network, and that part is grand! Except for the bit where Nat never thought he’d be running the phones during an actual fucking emergency evac of London. He moved to this planet to avoid this sort of shit, and here he is again, dealing with an invasion.

Racnoss, though. He has no idea what those even are, so he just keeps repeating the Doctor’s description to anyone who asks: planet-eating spiders. That’s been shutting up the mouthy ones right quick.

Hearing that the Doctor is about also soothed some tempers. Not a lot of alien immigrants are all that fond of Torchwood—too many years of the old regime, which Nat thankfully did _not_ deal with—but they’ll side with the Doctor nine times out of ten.

Granted, none of them knew that Torchwood’s current head might as well be an alien, so maybe things’ll change up a bit once the emergency is over and done. It’d be nice to spend a bit less time looking over his shoulder, especially when the dangerous stuff turns up in Nat’s flat. They really do have a warehouse for this, but nope, they drop it off in his bloody living room and leave him to clean up the mess. That’s what he gets for being the Operator.

Nat cracks his knuckles, remembers to nudge his skin away from straight-up blue and back towards a pale milky color that most humans don’t blink twice at, and picks up the comm again. “And now that you lot have had your fifteen to prepare, it’s time to play musical transport!”

“I still say we leave this lot to fend for themselves!” Kirst complains at once.

“You do not treat your neighbors that way,” Lady Numeriana says in a very flat, very _specific_ tone, the sort that a wise bloke does not fuck with. “Or you will cease to be their neighbors for reasons very different than current circumstances require.”

Kirst audibly gulps. “Yes’m. Not sure how most of my neighbors are gonna react to me teleporting them places, is all.”

“Who cares? Grab them, leave them outside the M25, and then come back for more!” That’s Nat’s Seffie, dear sensible them. “Those of us with the actual bleedin’ spaceships are in for a bit more of a bother, y’know.”

“Yeah, but the kids will love that,” Termin says. “Nat, you’ve got us on the board, yeah?”

“Yep, I can see all of you, Network is still fully active, comm lines are open, and your transports and other means of locomotion are up and lit green. If something takes you out of the game, let me know ASAP so I can keep it up to date and swap you to red for the duration. Otherwise, once you’ve got your own families out of the hot zone, it’s time to help out a few more, hey?”

* * * *

Mickey doesn’t like not being the one doing the wiring, but he trusts this lot to do their jobs. It’s still odd, really. He’s just two years out from when he was only a married and partnered operative working with Martha, both of them taking on the occasional alien threat that cropped up in London (or cropped up everywhere, like the bloody sprouting Cybermen incident). Now they’re co-leading the whole of Torchwood One. Two years should’ve been long enough to get used to having minions, but it really isn’t, and he’s learned that the hard way.

It even made him understand the Doctor a bit more, even if Mickey tries to resent that bit of self-awareness. It takes time to trust someone new to get it done right, especially if you’ve never seen them do it before. Rose is the one who proved herself right at the start by kicking a plastic-based alien in the face, and had a less bumpy time of it. Mickey is the one who decided to prove that, at first, he was good at cowering and running, and he’s still ashamed of that.

Eventually, he got over his fear of Everything That Could Go Wrong and ended up saving an entirely different Earth, proving himself, and then he went and stayed on that other world instead of seeing how the Doctor would treat him afterwards. It probably wouldn’t have been all that bad, getting back in that blue box of a ship, but he still doesn’t regret what he chose.

“All right, this one’s ready to light up,” Wilson declares. He and his partner, Vasquez, step back from the charges. “If we’ve laid this one right—”

“We did,” Vasquez insists.

“—Then it might take this tunnel junction and the Underground entrance with it,” Wilson finishes, nudging Vasquez in her ribs. “Knock off, you.”

“Got it. South team, you good to get out of here, then?” Mickey asks.

“Two more minutes. We’ll meet you topside,” Davies responds.

“The hell you will. You’ll meet us at the stairs as we cover your exit, and we all go topside together.” Mickey shakes his head as his team retreats to the escalators. “Hey, Not-Jane. Remember when you said recreating Taelaseen wouldn’t involve explosions?”

“I said there shouldn’t be any, an’ if there needed to be, they’d be useful ones,” the female version of the Doctor replies cheerfully. Mickey probably shouldn’t have a preference, them being the same person and all, but out of all three Time Lords that are currently roaming about, he likes her the best. “Why, did they stop being useful explosions?”

Mickey grins. “Nah. We’re moving along fine. What about your lot and the doohickey?”

“I really love how that word is spreading,” Crowley drawls through the comm.

“The doohickey is just fine, thanks,” Mickey’s first Doctor says. At least the bastard hasn’t any more of the old Ricky nonsense. “Soho evac is done. Noisy, but it’s done.”

Mickey breathes out a sigh of relief. That’s the neighborhood that’ll deal with their first incoming group of arseholes, and he’s glad to have the civvies elsewhere. “Grand. What about Mayfair?”

“The others turned off their mics because the, er, protests from Mayfair’s residents was a distracting racket,” River says. “And that’s quite an accomplishment from my point of view. I’d be impressed if they weren’t impeding their own survival.”

“Done, sir!” Davies chirps at Mickey. He still sounds far too bloody young to be setting and detonating bombs, but at least Mickey can blame UNIT for that. Davies and McFarlane lead their younger ex-UNIT ducklings back to the exit to meet up with Mickey’s team. They take the stairs up together, covering each direction. Mickey makes certain he’s the last to step out onto the walkway topside.

“Clear back,” Vasquez suggests. “If this works, I don’t know how much of the street it’ll take with it.”

“None. Theoretically,” Wilson says. “Saying goodbye to Aldgate station and points east in five, four, three, two…”

Mickey grimaces when he feels the rumble of destruction beneath his feet. This is his bloody city, and he’s in the midst of destroying parts of it. Even knowing this will probably save their arses doesn’t make him like it; he saw what it took in Pete’s world to put London’s mass transit back together after that particular version of a Cybermen invasion wrecked the place.

He can still appreciate a job well done, though. Aldgate’s topside station entrance collapses without them having to run a third set of charges. No one’s getting through that mess without heavy equipment. “Good call, Wilson, Vasquez. Think we could do that at all our stops?”

“Nah. We just got lucky with the tube and tunnel arrangements here. Most of these are going to involve a lot more bloody explosions,” Wilson says.

“And I wouldn’t want to try taking out more than one line at a time. We could do a lot more damage topside than London can afford,” Vasquez adds. Davies and McFarlane nod in agreement, so that’s that. Slow way it is.

Mickey takes another glance at the collapsed station. “Right. Let’s get moving. Everyone, we’re heading south to Tower Hill to block off eastern access to the District Line.”

“We’re at St. James to cut off west access on District and the Circle Line. Well, at least from here, anyway,” Martha says. “Almost done, and then we’ll be moving south as well.”

“Green Park is a bloody nightmare,” Jack adds. “We’re going to be at least ten more minutes setting up here, and I’m pretty sure we’re about to destroy this neighborhood’s property value. By a lot.”

“Alien invasions’ll do that,” Magambo utters crisply. “Marble Arch is down, taking out the westbound access on Central. Moving north to access Edgware Road for potential northbound exits.”

“Nah, that’s too many steps,” Skinny Arse Doctor cuts in. “Take out the exit for Edgware Road to block it from the street and then go east. Bakerloo and Metropolitan are connected on the Barkerloo line north of the Regents Park entrance. Hike up the tunnel a bit, use the interchange, and take out eight birds by cutting them off from reaching the Baker Street Station.”

“Resenting the bird implication, here,” Israfil comments dryly.

“Unless you lot lay eggs, you’re probably not what he meant,” Lethbridge-Stewart drawls.

“It’s just a _saying_, oi,” Skinny Doctor protests. “Oh, hello. Whoever’s near Warren Street—that’ll give you a direct shot at cutting off the western branch of the Northern Line to keep the Racnoss from going…well, north.”

“That one’s mine, then,” Rose says cheerfully. “C’mon you lot. What’s east of Warren Street, John?”

That’s also weird for Mickey to hear. Useful, and more polite than calling the Doctor Skinny Arse over the comm, but weird.

“Drop the entrances for Euston Square, Farringdon, Babican, and then Moorgate is your next big Underground exchange to cut off east access for Hammersmith, Metropolitan, Gold, and the east branch for the Northern line.”

Mickey’s envious and says so. Waterloo is going to feel like Napoleon’s last stand because of all the bloody line transfers.

Not-Jane speaks up. “So, remaining concerns from the Tube aside. What about the Archive, Kate?”

Lethbridge-Stewart sighs. “It’s rated to withstand a high-yield nuclear assault, Doctor. I’m afraid the Black Archive and its contents will have to remain where they are.”

“Well, that’s just…irritating,” Skinny Arse Doctor says. “Anything else we can do to secure it?”

“Do you know if the Racnoss are susceptible to memory flashes?” Lethbridge-Stewart asks.

“No idea. Human-looking doesn’t necessarily mean human retina,” Skinny Arse replies.

Lethbridge-Stewart doesn’t sound surprised. “Well, that system will remain active, and it will react to anyone who approaches the vault, so I suppose we’ll be finding out.”

* * * *

Harold Sloper slowly cranes his head skyward, narrowing his eyes. It’s dark, and he’s an old man, but his vision is still all right. Especially for things that are low to the ground. “Sweetheart, is that a ruddy spaceship just over there?”

“Oh, it’s probably another one of those new experimental military aircraft again, dear. They do tend to be about sometimes,” Bessie reminds him, locking the door to their flat properly behind them before picking up her usual satchel. “Let’s get a move on, love. No doubt we’ll be back in time for tea tomorrow, but we need to show these young ones who didn’t see the Blitz how to act like proper Londoners when there’s a crisis.”

“Yeah. Course, dear,” Harold agrees, even though he’d bloody well hated the Blitz. The one good memory he has of the entire affair is having sex with Bessie during one of the blackouts, both of them foolish teenagers who thought they wouldn’t need birth control because obviously the ceiling would cave in before kids would be a bother. They’d lucked out and she didn’t turn up pregnant, but Harold was a good man, and Bessie was a nice girl, so he married her anyway. Both of their boys are British military, and might very well be local to help with the evacuation. Terrorists invading or something; Harold hadn’t paid much attention to the radio when the news started prattling on about it. The klaxon was already going off, and he was busy digging up his passport.

Harold takes another look at the strange craft overhead, which looks to be slowing down to maybe land on a roof. The military’s involved. Anything’s possible, he decides. Besides, if that newfangled thing is there to get Mr. and Mrs. Billings from across the street out of this mess, then good on them, experimental aircraft or not. They’re both old, don’t get around so well anymore, and it’s a good solid walk out to the street corner with the buses waiting.

Bessie takes his arm, Harold plants his cane down on the walk, and they set off at their usual pace. They’re not so quick on their feet anymore, either, but they know how to make it work, his bum leg and her bad knees.

“Maybe there’ll be another blackout,” Bessie suggests with a wicked smile.

“Temptress,” Harold mutters. “Least we definitely don’t have to worry about rubbers this time, do we love?” he asks, and she laughs.

* * * *

Truth be told, Martha’s rather glad she’s in the Underground, escorting demolition teams and keeping an eye on them. Dealing with aliens, even ancient, planet-eating spiders older than time itself, is something she knows. She understands the risks, she knows how to help the injured, and she’s in the position to make necessary calls instead of letting that fall to a bunch of daft politicians.

Mum claims that Martha dislikes politicians because she never got over Harold Saxon. Martha never argues with her, because she’s right.

Of course, that was before today. Politicians are easier to deal with than real life biblical sodding angels. She likes Crowley, Aziraphale, and Israfil (Raphael, bloody _hell_) because they act like real people, like they’re just as much an Earthling as she is, if not the human sort. The rest of the Celestials are more alien than the actual aliens Martha deals with every day.

Martha reaches up and swaps channels on her ear-piece. “Tish?”

“I’m here,” Tish replies, sounding harried. “Bethnal Green is completely evacuated, and a crew is pulling everything vital from the Thames warehouse right now. Those of us who aren’t with you to work at evacuating Central London are out here with me, coordinating with the British military for the evac of Greater London. We’ve got a _lot_ of ex-UNIT volunteers, by the way, and more keep turning up. Once a planet-saving soldier, always one, I suppose.”

Martha doesn’t argue that point, either. None of them really stopped looking after the Earth after the Year That Wasn’t. “Mum and Dad?”

Tish yells at someone in the background before answering. “Leo sent Keisha out of the first hot zone with Tracy.” That’s their brother, niece, and his ex-wife taken care of, then. “Then Leo came back for Mum and Dad. They’re already on their way out on one of the roads authorized for civilian vehicle evac.”

That makes Martha feel a bit badly for the families with cars who could have driven their way out of Central London, but they are literally surrounded by a fire created by an extra-dimensional being. Everyone in Central is getting out by the TARDIS passages, or not at all.

“You and Mickey still own that cottage in the Peak District, right?”

“Yeah, we do,” Martha confirms. Knowing that all of her family will be well away from London is a relief. Some days she thinks Mickey’s lucky not to have any family left except their kids, but then some days he just gets this _look_ on his face, and Martha knows she’s being daft. “Just remind everyone that the key isn’t the important part, it’s the security code. If they forgot it, tell them to text my personal mobile before opening up the house. How about you? Are you all right, Tish?”

“Me? I’m the highest-ranking Torchwood member present, Martha. People with loads of military experience are looking to me for answers because I occasionally deal with aliens!” Tish takes a breath. “I’m just absolutely peachy.”

“You worked in politics for a decade, _and_ you know how to bluff. If you run into real trouble, you have Kate and Ianto at your back until the rest of us get clear of Central and join you,” Martha reminds her sister. “If we’re allowing civvie drivers on the road, how’s traffic?”

“Orderly. Strangely enough, folks were a lot more agreeable about the evacuation when Central London was suddenly surrounded by a five-storey ring of _fire_.”

Martha grimaces. “Well, then it serves more than one purpose, I guess—oh. Gotta go.”

She switches back to the primary channel and lifts her rifle. If she hadn’t been watching that part of the tunnel, she wouldn’t have seen it teleport in. “Guys, we’ve got a visitor.”

“What sort of visitor?” Marcus asks as he works, not even bothering to look up.

“Spidery type. Everyone back up,” Martha whispers. “Lils, you and Padma are with me, ready to fire.”

They all watch in silence as a being twice the height of a standard human skulks along the tunnel, briefly illuminated by the emergency lights before it’s just a silhouette in the darkness again. The Racnoss’s skin is shimmery red with black markings. They don’t have hair, just a slight ridged crown on their head with…extra eyes. Otherwise, it really does look like someone forgot what a centaur was supposed to be and just grabbed an arachnid instead of a horse.

“Someone please talk to me,” Martha’s Doctor says through the comm, but he’s being sensible and keeping his voice low.

“Racnoss in the tunnel, just the one. It teleported in, utterly silent and no hint of light to the teleport. We’re all going to have to keep a sharp eye out. If I hadn’t been looking that way, I might’ve missed it,” Martha informs him, along with everyone else listening in. “You forgot to mention their extra eyes, Doctor.”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry ’bout that. Gives them grand peripheral vision.”

Donna sounds a bit gleeful. “That’s why they had a map of the Underground! They can just teleport from the energy they’re climbing directly into a tunnel big enough to hold them.”

“A Racnoss’s only true blind spot is to stand directly behind them,” the angel Michael says. “My apologies for not mentioning that sooner; I’d forgotten that detail.”

“It’s a scout,” Israfil continues. “The Racnoss always scout ahead when they enter new territory, but this one’s a bit ahead of schedule.”

“Are they telepathic? Hive mind?” River asks. “Creatures that were supposed to be extinct before the dawn of time were not my field of study.”

“Neither,” the Doctor confirms. “Just numerous.”

Lils holds up the life signs detector so Martha can read the screen. The only thing showing aside from them and the Racnoss is something warm and tiny, most likely a rat.

“Bag it,” Martha orders, and lets Padma do the honors. She winces when the Racnoss screams, but then Padma adjusts her aim to be a bit more merciful for them all. The tunnel returns to blessed silence.

“That thing’s terrifying,” Marcus observes. Lils nods in agreement. The Doctor, all three versions, are silent. Martha isn’t used to hearing the Doctor treat any sort of killing like it’s necessary, and that lack of judgment is almost as creepy as the Racnoss.

Martha edges closer until she’s just outside the range of the Racnoss’s limbs. She has no idea if these things have post-death reflex responses or not, and doesn’t want to find out. She takes several photos with her mobile and then uploads the results to every group leader in Central and Greater London.

Jack whistles when he receives the pictures. “Well, that’s something you don’t see every day. I think I’ve finally met something I don’t wanna flirt with.”

“For God’s sake, Harkness,” Magambo growls.

“I’m more concerned about further scouts.” That’s Gabriel, the one who sounds just as American as Jack, except Jack isn’t a complete tosser. “When their scouts don’t return to rejoin the others, the Racnoss are going to know their invasion is being anticipated. They’ll plan accordingly.”

“We should show them the photos. London, I mean,” Donna clarifies. “Not right away, though. It would cause a bloody panic. But towards the end, we should make sure London knows what these things look like. That’ll get the stubborn holdouts on the move. You know there are _always _a few idiots who won’t evacuate proper.”

Mickey sighs. “Yeah, that’s a good point, but I’m not sure it’s the right call. Kate, what do you think?”

“It’s a valid suggestion, yes, but I don’t know, either,” Kate admits. “I worry that doing so might instigate a panic even in the later stages of the evacuation. I suggest we keep it in mind and consider all our options until it comes time to make that decision.”

“Y’know, I might have an idea,” Crowley says.

Martha tries not to cringe. Much like the Doctor, Crowley’s ideas are usually bloody mental.

* * * *

“Okay, the mics are off. What’s the idea?” Not-Jane asks, barely looking up from whatever she’s doing to the control panels. Programming it, possibly, but there are no sounds aside from her typing at three different keypads. Not only are none of the keypads using the same language, the individual boards can’t even stick with one script.

Crowley feels one of the TARDIS ships trying to nudge at his mind in order to provide translation, but he doesn’t need it right now. Later, maybe, he’ll be curious enough to look at the diverter—if it survives redirecting a black hole’s worth of energy, anyway.

“Hold on.” Crowley bends down long enough to rest his palm against the ground. The asphalt next to his hand is still blackened from the miracled-away remains of the lightning-struck Weeping Angel construct.

The scout that Dr. Jones encountered is definitely not alone. There are more Racnoss climbing their way up the ley lines, twenty to thirty of them, well in advance of Samael, Typhaon, their assorted demons, and several thousand Racnoss. “Twenty to thirty more scouts are inbound ahead of schedule. Otherwise, the Racnoss are sticking with emerging in Central London, just like we thought, and it’s too late for them to change their minds. Might want to pass that along.”

Crowley listens long enough to hear Not-Jane temporarily turn her mic back on and inform the others. Then he returns his concentration to the web of ley lines. For the Racnoss to come up through the Earth in a different place would now be a detour of at least an hour. Samael has that sort of patience, but hungry Racnoss don’t.

Samael and friends are almost done crossing the dimensional barrier between Earth and Below. Even with the Racnoss’s assistance, the transition between dimensions isn’t a rush job, not with Earth and Below so far out of synch. Not when they have to travel backwards in time just to arrive on the right sodding day.

They really will dig their way out of the asphalt at dawn. Samael took him too bloody literally, but Crowley is the idiot who said dawn, not daylight.

Crowley sneers at the ground. That damned time loop might be a pain in the arse, but it went and did them a favor, too. The Earth can’t be invaded by those idiots arriving at a later date, because that later date can’t happen until the time loop is dissolved. If Samael was half as smart as he claims, he would have dissolved the stupid time loop and invaded the Earth within seconds instead of hours.

Maybe Samael went daft after being imprisoned for ten thousand years. That’d be useful, especially if that stupidity continues to work in their favor.

Crowley stands back up. “Right, back to the idea I mentioned. It’s something I don’t want to share with the others unless it was a thing that can be done. Most people are terrified of them. For good reason.”

His night vision means there are never shadows to worry about, so the sight of a shadow that Crowley _definitely_ shouldn’t see always sets him on edge. No local shadows to worry about, though. Tasting the air gains him better results: predator, old blood—from a mouse—crunchy dead leaves, a bit of static.

“Both of you hold still,” Crowley suggests. “There’s one close by, which is grand, because I didn’t want to waste time tracking one of the little bastards down. Makes ’em nervous. Twitchy. Prone to eating you. That sort of thing.”

Both versions of his kid pause in what they’re doing. The younger Doctor raises both eyebrows. “You’re not doing what I think you’re about to do. I mean it; please tell me you’re not. That is bloody _mental_.”

“No one is that mental,” Not-Jane says. “Well, aside from me. Us.”

“Sorry to prove you wrong about the mental bit, because yeah, I’m doing exactly what you think.” Crowley whistles at a pitch that humans can’t hear, one that leaves dogs shaking their heads in confusion. Both Doctors react with the same sort of eye-twitch, so they’re hearing it, too.

Not-Jane lights up with curiosity. “I had no idea they made noise. I’ve never heard it before.”

The Doctor is a bit less calm. “You’re going to get us all eaten. Discorporated, in your case, but _eaten_.”

“Nah. Not today, at least.” Crowley watches as a black mass, trying to disguise itself as a building’s shadow, slinks its way down from the southern end of Greek Street. “Oi, you aren’t fooling me! You lot like to play that you’re larger than you really are, but I know better.”

Crowley flinches when the shadow leaps up, latches itself around his right wrist, and bites hard. “Ow, fuck! That was rude!”

Not-Jane and the Doctor are both standing absolutely still. “Annnnd you’re not a pile of bones. That’s a good start, I suppose.” The Doctor’s head is tilted at an angle, grimace frozen on his face. Not-Jane is stuck on horrified fascination.

“Not with those manners, it’s not!” Crowley yanks off his glasses and stares at the moving shadow on his wrist. “Just for that, you’re not allowed to hide. Show me what you actually look like. Also, stop eying my kid like they’re breakfast, because I’ll evict every last sodding one of you from this planet if you ever even think about that again.”

“You called up a bloody Vashta Nerada,” Not-Jane finally says. “I’m a nutter, and it’s definitely your fault. Mum just helped, but the rest of it is all on you.”

Crowley smirks. “Probably.” He watches the shadow become smaller until it’s a soft, not quite furry, spiked black mass with a flowing shape that never really defines itself. He can only identify its face when a part of it pops up, revealing the faintest hint of glimmering, solid black eyes hiding within the not-fur. “Besides, that’s a mistranslation. Vnasta Narada, not Vashta Nerada. Pre-Time creature that you can find pretty much anywhere in the known universe.” He thinks about it. “Not sure I recall who came up with them. Definitely not one of mine, but I thought it was a good idea.”

“_Those who make emptiness_. Agents of change,” the Doctor says.

Not-Jane snorts. “The clean-up crew, more like.”

“Can’t make things without making a mess, usually,” Crowley agrees. “Pretty sure they’re the inspiration for that one American bloke’s short story. Langoleers? No. _The Langoliers_. I mean, giant black shadow creatures that eat everything? S’close enough.”

“Except this version looks like a Studio Gibli soot sprite,” the Doctor says flatly.

“Oh, did you have to?” Crowley sighs. “I’m never going to be able to watch that film the same way ever again.” Oh, well. At least the soot sprites never try to eat the kids. “Just a reminder for my new friend: this planet is my dominion, and I really can evict the lot of the Vnasta Narada from the Earth. Might make you a bit more inclined to listen to me.”

“Definitely inclined to biting you.” Not-Jane makes a face when blood drips from Crowley’s wrist to land on the asphalt. “Do those sorts of bites get infected? I’ve never seen a Vashta Nerada—Vnasta Narada—merely bite someone. Usually they just…eat them wholesale.”

“Every ecosystem has its quirks.” Crowley glares at the Vnasta Narada on his wrist. “I have a deal for you, fuzzy, and it doesn’t involve biting me again. There are things coming up from the Earth that are about to invade your territory, and I know how you lot feel about that.”

The Vnasta Narada twines around his wrist before whistling back, demanding more information. Now he’s getting somewhere.

“They’re an alien species as old as you lot. Remember the Racnoss? Top half are human-shaped, bottom half is gigantic spider-shaped. They’re invading London, and the first scout has already popped up in the Underground. Your lot likes the Underground—plenty of shadows, plenty of rats, plenty of places to hide. One of your favorite hunting grounds, yeah? The Racnoss will take it from you unless you do something about it. But.” Crowley jabs a finger at Fuzzy’s not-fur, which feels like static electricity with needles involved. “You touch _only_ the Racnoss, the spider invaders. No one else. You lot defend your territory, which will help us to make certain the Racnoss don’t eat literally everything on this planet. No, them invading is not my bloody fault!” he adds when Fuzzy whistles again. “It’s their fault, but that’s not the point. The point is that if you _don’t_ help, we might lose, and then you’re fucked, because the Racnoss are one of the few things in existence that knows how to eat _you_.”

That earns him a low-pitched whistle of disbelief. “Oh, you have to be a young one if you don’t remember that,” Crowley says. “Look, here’s your option: the Vnasta Narada take out all the Racnoss they can get to, particularly the scouts that are arriving through the Underground in the next few minutes, and I’ll continue to ignore your random London snacking under the arrangement we made a few hundred years back. Otherwise, eviction. Deal?”

The Vnasta Narada considers his terms for a minute, lets out a shrill sound that hurts Crowley’s ears, and leaps from his wrist. It lengthens back into a false shadow and disappears.

“Was that a yes, a no, or a maybe?” Not-Jane asks.

Crowley heals the bite on his hand and then miracles away the bloody mess left behind. “That was a yes. It was the free food bit that did it, though. I just gave them permission to eat giant sentient spiders. They’ll be thrilled.”

The Doctor rubs at his left ear. “Oi, that was loud. What earlier agreement?”

“Oh.” Crowley brushes the lingering feeling of static electricity off his hands by wiping them on his denims. “If the Vnasta Narada stick with eating child predators, rapists, and gleeful murderers, then they can hunt in London all they want. Everyone else is off-limits…and unfortunately, London’s always had plenty of the other three types. There isn’t enough of them to eat _every_ arsehole roaming around London, but it balances out. Oh, and I got a commendation from Below for corralling an entire city’s worth of Vnasta Narada, because no one else had ever done that before.” It also meant Below credited him with collecting souls from unrepentant bastards, but Crowley isn’t going to mention that part. He’s still not sure how he feels about the soul-shuffling system even after certain rules were reinstated last autumn.

“Balance. We’re slowing down the Racnoss,” Not-Jane realizes. “By how much?”

Crowley tries to figure out how many different groups of Vnasta Narada are supposed to be in London and gives it up as a waste of time. “The scouts might be all they can handle. Maybe a few more. London’s missing persons list would be through the bloody roof if there were that many people-eating shadows lurking about.”

“But even losing the scouts—that’ll buy us time,” the Doctor says.

“Better than that: they’re going to fool the Racnoss into thinking that they’re dealing with Vnasta Narada who’re cranky about their territory being invaded, not well-armed humans, a few aliens, and Celestial types.” Crowley glances at the Doctors, realizes this is one instance in which he should _definitely_ take credit for the chaos, and activates the mic on the ear-piece again. “You lot have new players in the game. If you spot any more of the Racnoss scouts, back off instead of taking them out unless you don’t have a choice. I offered them up as dinner for a few friends of mine.”

Aziraphale understands first, but Aziraphale was the one who told him he was utterly mad for trying to negotiate with the Vnasta Narada in the first place. The fact that it worked doesn’t mean the angel has changed his mind. “Crowley. You didn’t!”

“You know, angel, you only use that tone when you know I already did the thing.”

“Please tell me you were specific,” Aziraphale responds with a heavy sigh.

Crowley actually blinks in astonishment. “Oh, wow. I’m insulted right now. Do you have any idea how insulted I am? I mean, really? You’re asking if _I _was specific. Me. Former demon. The bloke who learnt modern human contract law because I thought it was fun. Me.”

“So, what should we be looking for so we know not to kill it?” someone asks in a wobbly voice. Crowley guesses Torchwood instead of UNIT. Less military usually equals less experience with outright killing things.

“Just ignore any moving shadows you see. They’re only interested in arachnid meals right now.” Crowley frowns. “Oh, and if you’re a paedophile or a serial killer, might want to leave the Underground. They can smell that sort of thing, and within the bounds of London, the Vnasta Narada are contractually allowed to eat you.”

The version of his kid with Crowley’s face makes a choked, angry noise that sounds like it emerges mostly from his nose. “You invited the bloody Vashta Nerada for breakfast?” he yells.

Crowley glances over his shoulder at the others. Not-Jane shrugs. “Yep,” he answers. “And it’s Vnasta Narada. I’m not going around saying your species name incorrectly.”

Donna chimes in. “The same _Vnasta Narada_ who I told you tried to eat us in—once before, I mean.”

“Yep!”

“Sunshine, I bloody well hate you,” Donna says.

Crowley grins. “Consider it revenge for you bloody well slapping me.”

* * * *

Israfil wants bloody earplugs, or mufflers, or whatever they’re called. Most major intersections in Central London are now gathering points for all of the cabs, buses, travel vans, and military vehicles available. When a vehicle at the head of the line fills up, it rumbles off, taking people to the nearest living ship. All of his are northbound, sticking close to Donna because she’d given him this _look_, silently asking him to be one of the angels that would board last and close the TARDIS doors behind him.

It’s harder work to keep people calm and orderly when everything is so sodding loud. Voices he can tune out; the first War trained him for that. Automobiles are still new to him. They emit noxious fumes, they make the asphalt vibrate painfully beneath his feet, and at this point, he’s fairly certain he loathes them all.

Not his brother’s Bentley. The Bentley is too well-mannered to assault his ears like this.

The noise doesn’t keep his eyes from working as Israfil walks down the line of waiting Londoners, soldiers at his back. He doesn’t like that sensation. He didn’t want an armed escort during the war in Heaven, but it’s—mostly—not about that. The soldiers are there to reassure the civilians (Israfil thinks so, anyway; it’s certainly convincing everyone to behave themselves) and to defend them all if a demon or the Racnoss turn up early.

Firearms in films are often loud. Israfil imagines they’re even louder in real life. He’s glad hearing damage can be healed.

The soldiers in the area are also checking to make certain everyone is obeying the evacuation’s rules: one backpack or bag only, unless you’re dealing with an infant, which allows you extra supplies. That also gives a parent the allowance to have one of the wheeled baby strollers stuffed into a bus luggage compartment, not to mention an automatic seat on that bus instead of the other vehicles. Those who need service animals, wheelchairs, or other means of assistance are granted the same courtesy, to Israfil’s relief. He’d be verbally tearing people apart if that was being overlooked, if people were being parted from things they _needed_.

No other pets allowed, which he hates, but their choice is people or pets. They don’t have time to get every single living thing out of Central London. There are three zoos in Greater London, and from what Israfil has overheard, the animals within are being evacuated by priority of most endangered to least endangered. He’s not much fond of that, either.

Endangered species. Galling idea. Humanity should have learned their lesson with the unicorns and Noah’s sodding Ark.

Israfil stops next to a child, a teenager, who doesn’t smell like they’re related to the people in front of them or behind them. The front of their hooded jumper seems a bit lumpier than it should be, even with their hands nestled together in the oversized front pocket. They have their one allowed bag, a backpack, and a perfect expression of innocence that Crowley would cheer them for attaining.

“Hi there,” Israfil says. The teenager, maybe about thirteen years old, looks up at him in surprise. Then their gaze turns to frank appraisal, but without any of the sexual interest that Israfil usually tries to ignore.

“You’re one a’ them aliens everyone’s whispering about, aren’t you?” they ask. “The ones working with the army to clear out London.”

“I’m not alien, I’m extra-dimensional. I’m told it’s not quite the same thing. I’m Israfil. Usually I’m a guy, but sometimes I play for the other team. Today it’s the former, though. You?”

They smile. “I’m Jenn. Usually a girl, but sometimes gender is such a hassle. Today it’s girl, if only so I don’t have to go an’ explain what enby means to every wanker with a clipboard I’m probably gonna run into. Makes it easier to find my parents later, anyway.”

Israfil quietly congratulates himself on picking up on Jenn’s partial non-binary status. Older humans in England often have strange, set ideas about gender, but the younger ones are much more well-informed. “Where are your parents, then?”

Jenn shrugs. “Mum works in Whitechapel, and Dad works in Chelsea, both of them on night shift, so it’s me evacuating our flat by my lonesome. No big deal. I’ll find a friend to hang about with at some point, and if I’m on an army clipboard list, they’ll be able to find out I’m all right once the dramatic bits are done with. They know I’m okay at lookin’ after myself, anyway.”

“And other things too,” Israfil murmurs in quiet approval. He reaches out and taps down the very small furry head that just tried to peek out of the top of Jenn’s jumper.

“Oh, shit,” Jenn whispers, eyes wide and horrified. “Uhm. I have. A growth.”

“Wow, that was a sloppy cover story. Might want to work on that.” Israfil makes a show of glancing around before he reaches out, taps the top of the orange kitten’s head, and then adds an extra tap for the cat kibble he can smell inside Jenn’s backpack. “That’ll keep your stowaway and stowaway supplies from being noticed by anyone for about twelve hours. You should both be safe by then.”

Jenn bites her lip. “Alien thing? You sure that’s gonna work?”

“Extra-dimensional thing,” Israfil corrects crossly. “Of course it’ll work. I was just curious as to why you’re taking the risk.”

“She’s just a baby,” Jenn mumbles, shoving the kitten back down to the bottom of her jumper again to support her with her hands. “You shouldn’t leave babies behind. They can’t save themselves.”

Israfil smiles. This one—oh, she’s going to do amazing things one day. He doesn’t even have to bless her to know it, but he adds one, just in case. “Sounds like something my brother would do. Has done, actually. He feels the same way. Stay safe, Jenn. Keep little Francis there safe, too.”

Jenn gapes at him. “No way. I didn’t tell you her name!”

“Extra-dimensional being,” Israfil reminds her, smirking. “See you later.”

“I might not’ve seen that cat afterwards, but I did before you pulled that little trick. You know we’re not supposed to do that,” Sergeant Addicott says in a low voice after they continue down the line.

Israfil half-turns and raises both eyebrows. He does like some of the military humans he’s working with. Torchwood and UNIT both have such respect for the Doctor that anyone labeled “companion of the Doctor” is granted automatic authority. Israfil hasn’t tried to find out what “uncle of the Doctor” would get him. He’s not sure he wants to find out. “Do what, Sergeant?”

Addicott grins. “I’m not sayin’ it’s wrong, mate. Just keep it on the down-low. We’ve got to keep the weight on the vehicles within operating range. Can’t afford a breakdown and lose equipment we still need.”

“I know. Besides, I couldn’t hide a human’s large dog if I tried. They have no idea how to be subtle.”

Addicott snorts out a laugh. “Yeah. Makes me glad m’wife’s taking our Labrador and the kids out with the car using the civvie evac route from Stamford. I love that dog, but he’s a bleedin’ idiot.”

Israfil pauses when he hears Crowley’s voice though the ear-piece again, returning after a rather long pause once he’d announced he had an idea. Israfil listens to what Crowley’s done, realizes his jaw is hanging open, and then decides to let Aziraphale deal with him. It’s easier that way.

Addicott’s partner twitches her head to indicate they step away from the civilian lineup. “What’s that mean? Shadows are going to be eating the spiders?” Castell, asks, looking pale and decidedly unimpressed.

“Oh, my brother just decided to pit one species from before the dawn of time against the other species from before the dawn of time,” Israfil says, trying to sound a lot more reassured than he feels. The Vnasta Narada aren’t evil, but they are…particular.

Addicott sighs. “At least we’re not working the Underground. They can have fun with the moving shadows, and welcome to it. Let’s get this line moving faster. I don’t like how close we’re getting to dawn.”

* * * *

Rose shakes off the dizziness of teleportation and checks on her team. Weed from Torchwood London is as green as his favorite off-duty pastime, but otherwise he’s holding up fine. Torres is already scouting the area around the Babican Underground entrance like someone who refuses to give up being UNIT, no matter how disbanded they are. Kelly is bent over and vomiting. Again.

“Every bloody teleportation. Every single one!” Weed mocks his fellow Torchwood employee. “How the hell do you have anything left in your stomach, mate?”

“Fuck you, an’ I dunno,” Kelly manages, straightening up with a grimace. “Sorry, Tyler.”

Rose shrugs her lack of concern about the sick. “Vortex manipulator: not a fun way to travel.” The fact that River Song gave it to Rose before the evacuation started is still a bit baffling, but it’s definitely being put to good use. Not only is Jack and his team covering ground a lot faster, so are they—but there is a passenger limit. “Hernandez, we’ve made it to Babican to drop the stairs. How’s things in the Tube?”

“We just made it to the station junction about a minute ago, ma’am,” Hernandez responds. No matter what, he won’t stop calling her ma’am, and it’s driving Rose mental. Rose or Tyler are both fine, but _ma’am_ makes her feel as old as she actually is! “Everything is quiet here, but we’ll be glad when you’re done at Babican and come join us. It’s bloody creepy down here, ma’am, and I lived in Puerto Rico for a year with no electricity.”

“Good to know, Hernandez. Not that last part, though.” Rose bites her lip in brief frustration after waving for the Torres and Weed to set up the charges while she and Kelly watch their backs. It’s so bloody odd. The original timeline, her timeline, might’ve had alien invasions and bloody Daleks on the regular, but it’d made humanity cling to each other a bit more. She knows the Doctor had a good reason for rebooting time in 1996, but without those invasions…frankly, people are being right pricks to each other, and Puerto Rico is just one of a many examples she’s heard about in just over an hour. Just a bloody _hour_.

The Brexit thing is so ridiculous she can’t even figure out where to begin with dismantling that disaster.

Rose listens to the comm chatter while Torres and Weed do their usual bicker over geometry and blast radius fallout. It’s for a reason, the bickering: it relieves stress, and it gets results. She led her version of Torchwood in her dad’s reality for years, and knows what to ignore and what to nip in the bud. She learned to be harder; she learned how to let things go. Mostly she figured out how to really be herself, and that was the hardest part.

“So, uh, the chatter from the, uh, er, winged guys…”

“They’re extra-dimensional sort-of-aliens,” Jack says. “Celestials, unless you want to go and call them ‘winged guys’ to their faces.”

“No thanks, Captain,” that nervous bloke on Jack’s team responds.

Jack sounds like he’s grinning. “Unless it directly involves blowing up the Underground access points or the evacuation, it’s easier to just ignore their chatter. Some of them don’t know how to be local.”

“Gotcha,” a female voice on Jack’s team drawls, “but I’m re-evaluating my career choices with Torchwood after this is done, sir.”

“Good to go,” Torres announces, interrupting Rose’s curiosity. “Move up and out!”

Rose settles in behind a car with Torres and shoves the plugs into her ears. “I hate doing this,” Torres says beside her, muffled but still audible. “Tearing apart my own city, I mean.”

Rose nods as everything takes on a muffled, distant tone. “I know what you mean.”

“At least just taking out the junction points and the stairs—that’s easy cleanup afterwards. Pain in the arse, though,” Torres complains as she detonates the charges. When the four of them pop back up from cover, Babican is a hole in the walk…and a bit of the road, too.

“Bugger this for a lark,” Weed mutters. “You know it’ll be on us to have to go an’ clean up this mess the moment the emergency’s canceled, too.”

“Oi, no, I am not doing RLF’s job for them!” Kelly announces as he reaches out to place a hand on Rose’s extended arm. Once all three of them are gripping the vortex manipulator, another brief teleport takes them down into Moorgate Station.

Kelly sicks up again. Rose is sort of impressed at this point. Really nauseated, but impressed.

They’re greeted by one of Hernandez’s people through the comm as soon as Kelly is back on his feet. “If that was your arrival, take the quiet way through maintenance and drop down to the tunnel for the Metropolitan line,” Martin whispers. “Got a scout.”

“Uh…well. Never mind, actually,” Flores says a moment later. “The shadows just came alive and ate the scout. By the way, I don’t wanna live in London anymore.”

“Are they leaving?” the Doctor asks. John. Rose has to keep making herself think of him as John, because all three versions of the Doctor have tossed in a word or fifteen since the evacuation started. “The Vashta—the Vnasta Narada. Are they_ leaving?_”

“Yeah. Yeah, they’re heading off down the tunnel, away from us. Bloody hell, that’s creepy,” Ross says. “But if anyone wants a Racnoss carapace, apparently the hungry shadow things don’t eat the crunchy shell.”

“That’s really disgusting, thank you,” Mickey says. “We’re getting on with blocking eastbound access for Jubilee. How’re things topside?”

“Loud,” Israfil replies at once, sounding irritable. If his hearing is anything like a Time Lord’s, Rose feels badly for him. The reptile traits probably just make it worse.

“Going really well, though,” Magambo announces. “We won’t be done by five in the morning, of course, but we’ll be closer than I expected. If any arriving Racnoss are trapped underground, and the other intruders are kept within the bounds of Soho, we might get out of this part of the evacuation with zero casualties.”

“Now you’ve gone and jinxed it,” Martha says. “You used to be UNIT. You should know better!”

“I suppose I’m out of practice,” Magambo replies primly. “My, er, Celestial teammate does agree with my assessment, though. At this speed, with this level of swift cooperation, I expect to clear the whole of Central London by 06:00.”

“Wait. We’re really going to have moved three million people in a little over three hours?” Rose asks in disbelief. Without teleportation stations, that’s bloody unbelievable.

“It really is quite miraculous,” Magambo says. Rose has to slap her hand over her mouth to choke off sudden laughter.

“We’re not just here for our pretty faces,” Saraquel says.

“We did say we would help,” Aziraphale sniffs. Rose notices that neither of them actually _claim _to be using actual miracles, but she’ll eat her own bloody hat if they weren’t.

Miracles, magic, science—Rose hasn’t seen a thing to prove they’re not all the same thing. With a side helping of hanging about with Celestials who were made by God. That doesn’t make things awkward at all, nope.

Rose isn’t really in any hurry to literally meet her maker. Her issues with religion aside, it seems like it would take part of the mystery out of the universe, and that’s part of the fun.

“And there are a certain number of alien vessels who’ve been participating in evacuating their…neighbors, I suppose,” Magambo adds. “Except for a few mobiles coming out for pictures and video, London has collectively decided to, well, ignore them.”

“Sounds accurate,” Not-Jane declares cheerfully. “Less ignoring it and just going along with things until it tries to eat you, though. Very human trait, love it.”

“So is blowing things up.” Rose motions for her team to back away from their first set of charges. “Temporarily going off-comm to collapse a tunnel. If we don’t come back online in a minute, please come an’ find us, all right?”

They’ve just finished clearing out Moorgate and all of its various junctions—too many, this is taking too much time!—when Rose’s watch alarm starts beeping at her. She rolls up her right sleeve and swears under her breath. “It’s 04:25. I have to skip out on you and replace Professor Song at her station. Hernandez, you’re in charge.” She thinks about asking if they’ll be all right, but decides it might be an insult. She’s the one who looks like a kid playing soldier, anyway. “The seven of you watch each other’s backs, all right?”

The team nods at her. “We’ll drop down to Bank and start working on blocking off eastbound Central and all the bloody connectors,” Torres assures her. “You get to where you need to be, Tyler.”

Rose isn’t abandoning them, but she feels like it. They just don’t have a choice. “I’d stay if I could.”

Weed cracks a grin. “We know. You’re a nutter, just like the rest of us.”

“We’ve got this, Tyler.” Martin drops a pristine salute. “See you on the other side of the quarantine line.”

For some reason, the ridiculous saluting helps. Rose programs in her destination, teleports, and lands in Not-Jane’s crystalline TARDIS’s control room. “You’re two minutes early,” River greets her, smiling.

“I didn’t want to take a chance on mucking it up. Not with fixed points in time to worry about,” Rose replies, taking the vortex manipulator off her left arm and handing it over. “Thanks again for that. I hope it’s still got enough life in it to get you back home.”

River takes a quick glance at the vortex manipulator before she straps it back on. “Oh, it’s fine. Still need to replace it soon, but it’s the time travel that it’s starting to fuss about, not the teleporting.”

“That’s good, then.” Rose reaches up and turns off the mic for her ear-piece. River, raising an eyebrow, does the same. “I sort of wanted to have time to say something in private, too.”

River gives her a curious look. “Go ahead, then. I’m going to assume it’s probably related to the Doctor.”

Rose smiles and glances up at the distant ceiling. “I think we’re both that obvious when it comes to the Doctor, but yeah, it does. Before the Bad Wolf takes over and makes things a bit awkward…I wanted to thank you.”

“Thank me for what, darling?”

“For looking after him,” Rose says quietly. River’s expression drops from cool and untouchable to soft grief. “You looked after him all those years when I couldn’t, and there were so many of them. Thank you for being there for him—while he was still a him, anyway.”

“It wasn’t all the time,” River whispers.

“I know. But it was enough of the time, and it _mattered_. It made you happy, an’ it made the Doctor happy—and she’s gone and said so, so don’t you try to deny it,” Rose interrupts before River can protest. “Don’t be silly. Just because the Doctor is bad at feelings doesn’t mean she doesn’t love us. The Doctor’s just ruddy awful at showing it. Also, sometimes the Doctor has the manners of a drunken goat, so there’s that, too.”

River laughs aloud. “That’s true! He does. Did. She does? Not sure about her. She’s a bit different from what I’m used to.”

Rose lifts her arms and is glad when River doesn’t hesitate. It’s like hugging someone soft, warm, and human who just happened to get all mixed up with Time. There’s no regeneration energy left to her, though. When River leaves here, when she dies, it’s for good this time, and the Bad Wolf knows it.

River stands back, her hands on Rose’s shoulders. “You’re not young anymore, and neither am I. We both know what we’re getting into when it comes to the Doctor. If you’re thanking me for that…well, I know my time’s running out. I’ve no idea how much is left, but I can tell. So: look after the Doctor when I’m gone.”

“I will,” Rose promises. “Always, even if the universe tries to get in my way again. She’s not gonna be alone.”

River smiles and swipes at her eyes before any tears can fall. “Tell her I said…tell her I said goodbye. ‘Goodbye, sweetie.’ Exactly like that. She’ll know why.” Then she activates the vortex manipulator, disappearing in a bright flare of light.

“Yeah, she will,” the Bad Wolf murmurs sadly. “Goodbye, River Song.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As hinted at last chapter: yes, there are teams running around deliberatey caving in junction points and station entrances for the Tube in Central London to confine an invasion of planet-eating spiders. Nobody dies except a spider, all the stations are empty, the evacuation topside is orderly, and no one is in any immediate danger...but I'll understand if you don't want to do the thing.
> 
> To otherwise summarize: Crowley has mental ideas and even his kid thinks so, Israfil is a sucker for kittens, there are Vashta Nerada in London, and River Song departs for a trip to the Library.
> 
> I lurk on Tumblr @deadcatwithaflamethrower


	25. Infinity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _How much did I have to drink, because what century is this?_
> 
> also known as:
> 
> Flamethrower is at it again; watch for changing dates and times.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, this update took a while...but to be fair I keep confusing my body with medication changes and it doesn't know how to handle improvement because wtf does that even mean.
> 
> Thanks for hanging about with me for this ride, all of you...and it's not over yet. <3
> 
> Also thanks to @norcumii of Tumblr fame for cheer-reading so I could muddle my way through with the words until my brain started cooperating again, and as always, makes it easier. She's awesome and you should follow her.

Monday, 25th May 2020, Noon

Crowley awoke staring up at the olive green of a canvas tent. Two World Wars and dozens of conflicts, and unless a desert is involved, some things never bloody change.

Well, it’s not peaked, at least. That’s a round roof.

What is that infernal fucking beeping? Why is there noise?

Bollocks, why does his back hurt?

He forces himself to be conscious enough to think instead of just reacting to irritating noises. He sniffs and smells antiseptics and blood, but very much on the down low, not intense. Not a hospital tent, but a recovery tent. He sticks out his tongue and picks up on the horrible taste of imported Gatorade, and who the bloody hell thought _that _was a good idea?

Crowley feels comfortably warm, which means the humans are probably not happy in the slightest. They only feed that imported sugary shite to people who’ve been stupid, gone out, and overheated themselves, but aren’t in danger of toppling over from actual heatstroke. Crowley guesses the thermometer decided to push the idea of climate change in everyone’s faces again. It’s too warm for late May, maybe around 26 Celsius.

Why is he in a recovery tent?

Oh, shit—not his back. That’s his wings. Definitely his wings. He’s glad they’re in their proper pocket dimension right now because that is going to be a great bleeding pile of absolute _suck_ later, and Israfil will probably mock him for it.

“Ow—oh, you fucker.” Crowley lifts his hand and glares at the IV port taped into place, still connected to a fluid bag that’s half-full. He sniffs at the port on his hand. Not saline—not alone, anyway. It’s been a long time since someone found him unconscious and decided to start shoving fluids into his body. World War II, maybe? Sodium, potassium, and chloride suspended in fluid sounds like a much better idea than just cramming someone full of salt. Probably. Israfil would definitely know if it’s good for an angel’s human corporation.

_Am I drugged?_ This isn’t woolgathering. This is ridiculous.

Crowley turns his head, looking for the irritating beeping noise when it happens again. Life signs detector; he hasn’t seen one of those in almost thirty years. Not much has changed, except this one has a note taped to it, covered in stark, oversized print. Israfil’s handwriting, done with a black marker: LOW NUMBERS GOOD. HIGH NUMBERS BAD. STOP TRYING TO KILL MY BROTHER, YOU IDIOTS.

Okay, then. If someone tried to raise his pulse rate with drugs, it would explain why he’s having trouble concentrating. Especially if they were trying to increase respir—resp—respri—if they were trying to increase breath-numbers with it.

Crowley prods at the machine for a few seconds, gives up, and unplugs it from a surge protector strip that’s plugged into a much thicker conduit line. Temporary digs made hospitable—shut up, brain—in a rush. No more beeping, though. Now he can get rid of this stupid IV port…and start dripping blood all over the tent floor.

Right. He forgot a step.

Or maybe he didn’t forget the step, because he’s too exhausted to heal this mess.

Clean gauze is easy to locate. He shoves a stack of it onto his hand and then rips off a piece of masking tape with his teeth to tie it all down over his hand. That should be enough pressure to make the leaking stop.

He can find gauze, but not surgical tape. Humans are weird.

Walking feels awkward, like even his odd joints aren’t sure what to make of this gravity business yet. He’s not dizzy, he’s just…mostly, Crowley is bloody confused. He’s not putting the last few days together very well, and he doesn’t see anyone about that he’d trust to give him useful answers. Not like he can’t find them on his own, but nothing wrong with taking a shortcut.

No one tries to make Crowley stay in the recovery tent. He glances around at a disturbed beehive of humans racing all over the place. Military uniforms and fatigues, civilian-looking types who are definitely military…and an actual alien walking by without a disguise, or being detained. Given their short-legged progress, white coat, and obvious destination of one of the newer-styled white surgical tents, that’s a Zocci doctor, and the humans have had time to get used to them. Or maybe they haven’t yet had the time to give a fuck.

_How much did I have to drink, because what century is this?_

Crowley glances down and frowns. Yes, he owns a watch. A very, very broken watch, one that looks as if it was smashed with a brick. If he can’t heal a vein, he’s not getting anywhere with repairing that disaster.

He takes off the broken wristwatch and tries to stuff it in a jacket pocket to fix later, which is when he realizes he’s not wearing his jacket. The maroon t-shirt he started with on the last Friday repeat is stained and torn. So are his black denims, which are split at the knees and make him look like a rejected transplant from the 1980s. Even his boots look like he was scraping them along jagged rocks.

Fine. Broken watch can live in a denim pocket. He orders his loosely tied shoes to do their jobs and lace themselves properly before he lifts his nose into the air again, hoping for something familiar.

Above the humans—and somewhere distant, at least one Time Lord—and all the hospital smells is another one that is familiar/not-familiar. Curious, Crowley wanders in that direction first, because he hates that combination. Drives him mental when he should know what a thing is and doesn’t.

Someone, probably the military, unrolled and installed a tall chain link fence that cordons off the edge of the busy little hospital area. They weren’t fucking around, either, not with the razor wire stretched along the top.

Crowley laces his fingers in the holes of the fence, taking in the massive wall of violet infernal fire that towers above everything. Right. The M25. That’s not hellfire, but Black Fire, Lucy’s specialty. The only other demons in Hell who’d have a chance in hell—oh, for God’s sake, brain!—of making Black Fire would have to hold one of the lower thrones, the lords of the Dark Council. He’s never seen any of them do it, though.

He shudders as recollection drives back into his head like a crucifixion spike. He remembers why his wings hurt, why he would’ve been dumped into a hospital tent. There’d been so much blood. Not his, no, of course not, because he was in love with a stupid, stupid idiot—

Crowley drops to his knees as he stares at the wall of impenetrable black fire. “Aziraphale.”

Saturday, 23rd May 2020, 4:35 a.m.

Southwark, Central London

Aziraphale is pleased with the progress they’ve made. It isn’t merely a miracle that’s enabled them to move much of Central London’s citizens away from such dire incoming danger, but a long series of miracles—some more substantial than others. Still, it’s getting close to the time when they’ll be recalled back to Greek Street in front of his bookshop, standing ready to fight foolish rogue demons…and possibly a gigantic serpent from Grecian myth. Aziraphale certainly did not have battles in mind when choosing the location for his bookshop, and earlier moved all of his books out of literal range of fire.

He lets out an involuntary yelp when Crowley is suddenly next to him. “Oh! Don’t do that,” Aziraphale requests crossly, hand on his chest. The idea of the Racnoss invasion has him a bit nervy, especially as he’s still not certain what to expect from them.

“Sorry,” Crowley apologizes. Then he snags Aziraphale by the sleeve of his coat and walks them both into a darkened alcove. He watches in confusion as Crowley gestures at his ear before recognition strikes, and Aziraphale turns off the mic of his ear-piece. He can still hear the chatter of the others among their specific group, but he and Crowley now have their privacy.

“What is it, my dear? There is only…” Aziraphale checks his pocket watch. “Oh. Twenty-five minutes remaining until dawn.”

“Right, yeah.” Crowley seems nervous, as well. “I wanted to ask you something. Suppose maybe it’s been on my mind a bit, but there never seemed to be a good time to ask. Or a good reason, I guess.”

“Well…no time like the present, I suppose,” Aziraphale says. “Please ask, dear. I can tell that it bothers you, not having your curiosity answered.”

“Curiosity. Yeah.” Crowley swallows. “If everything about Purgatory had happened the same way it did. Raphael coming back and God turning up, but I was still a demon. Would we be dating? Or would it still be this…problem.”

Aziraphale briefly closes his eyes, pained. “Oh, Crowley. My dearest. We are not ‘dating’ because you became an archangel, and thus the relationship would be uncontested in Heaven. I am with you because I love you, and I would behave in this same exact manner even if you had not reclaimed the golden tips of your feathers.”

Crowley hesitantly reaches out to grip Aziraphale’s hands with both of his own. “I thought maybe, before everything went tits up for Not-Armageddon, you felt that way. About me, I mean. But I didn’t think you’d ever…I wanted it, I know you knew I wanted it, Zira—”

Aziraphale kisses the idiot, effectively silencing him. “I was afraid, and I’m well aware of the fact that _you_ knew that, as well. After we saved our home, after we survived those attempted executions, I didn’t care about those distinctions any longer. I wanted to speak to you about my feelings. Our feelings, I suppose. I just didn’t have it in me to jump feet first into the ocean right at the start. I wanted to do it right.”

“And then Purgatory happened because Michael decided the best course of action was to hide us from a vengeful, idiot brother named Gabriel who still wanted us dead.” Crowley smiles. “After that nap I’d planned on, I was ready to kiss you stupid the moment I saw you again just to find out if you’d let me get away with it.”

“Foul fiend,” Aziraphale murmurs fondly. “Of course I would.”

“Angel.” Crowley’s smile widens. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

Crowley suddenly embraces him in a way that it always feels as if he’s using all his limbs to twine around Aziraphale like a serpent. “I love you. If things go to shit, I just…I wanted to know. I wanted to be certain. For stupid reasons, really.”

“My dear boy.” Aziraphale doesn’t use that endearment for Crowley very often anymore, but right now, it feels proper. “It’s not stupid, not at all. I love you. I loved you when you were my adversary, and I love you as my best friend and fellow angel. Though I admit, I’m still getting used to that last part.”

“Join the club.” Crowley buries his face in the crook of Aziraphale’s neck and inhales deeply. “Survive. Please.”

Aziraphale bites his lip against the intensity of emotion that accompanies those two words. “I will survive this nonsense as long as you do the same.”

Crowley releases him and steps back. “Deal,” he agrees, and then vanishes in a flash of soft light and flutter of bronze-edged wings.

Aziraphale swallows down another flutter of nerves and reactivates the mic on the little ear-piece. There is still time to see to a few stubborn citizens who are attempting to hide from the evacuation order. “Saraquel, I could use your assistance, please.” He hurries along on his way, listening as Wilf grants him the first address he and Saraquel will be visiting—provided by Wilf’s new alien friend Nat.

Aziraphale doesn’t notice the new, additional weight in his inner coat pocket for another thirty hours.

* * * *

“Everything all right?” the Doctor asks when Crowley teleports back to Greek Street.

Crowley nods, looking as if he’s focused on something elsewhere. “Everyone’s where they should be. Your ship is still gossiping with itself, by the way.”

Her younger self lets out a snort. “Where did she get that idea from, I wonder?”

The Doctor grins. “The TARDIS’s had a bit of practice at talking to herself lately. Hard habit to break, that. I mean, just look at us!”

“That’s cause we don’t know how to shut up,” her younger self observes.

“Which is exactly my point!”

“You need therapy,” Crowley says, but his voice isn’t dry or humorous. He sounds entirely serious.

“Do not,” her younger self mutters, but the Doctor is a bit more self-aware. She’s had the time for a bit of reflection, and…well. Reacquainting herself with her sort-of-tenth face had driven home the point. Just because she’s all right now—mostly—doesn’t mean maybe she shouldn’t talk about a few things. A _lot_ of things.

“Problem with that, though—where do you find a psychologist or a psychiatrist, or whichever one is currently supposed to be doing the psycho-analyzing, who can handle a near-three-thousand-year-old Time Lord hybrid who travels through time and space and regularly mucks things up?”

This time Crowley gives her an unimpressed stare. “I’m a bloody Celestial Healer created before the dawn of Time. Also, that bit about judging others who can no longer judge for themselves? That’s the psychoanalyzing-psychiatry whatsit part.”

“Pretty sure every psych-anyone worth their salt would consider that a conflict of interest, you bein’ our dad an’ all,” her younger self points out.

“I’m a _Healer_,” Crowley repeats. Even with the sunglasses, the Doctor can tell that he’s rolling his eyes. “Besides; ignoring the puerile implications—you show me yours, I’ll show you mine.”

The Doctor frowns. “You mean like…I’ll tell you the stupid nonsense I got up to, and you’ll tell me about the stupid nonsense you got up to. Like getting to know each other, but useful instead of just embarrassin’?”

“Sure.” Crowley turns his head to the side and mutters, “Anditmeansyoumightcomeback.”

Well, that’s a tad insulting. “Why wouldn’t I come back?” she asks.

Crowley turns around to peer into the bookshop, which is now completely empty of books. The Doctor can’t blame Aziraphale for wanting to safeguard them all, especially with a literal demonic battle about to erupt in the street at his front door. “Demon for over six thousand years, probably a lot longer than that,” Crowley finally says. “It’s the sort of thing that doesn’t exactly do grand things for your social life.”

Her younger self glances up at her as he finishes wiring in the last bit of power needed for the singularity diverter. “Ba‘al doesn’t seem so bad,” he ventures.

“Eight months ago, Ba‘al still preferred to be called Lord Beelzebub, and yes, they very much earned the lore surrounding the name. Oh, and they tried to execute me last autumn, but it’s no big deal.”

“No big deal?” the Doctor repeats, trying to equate Ba‘al to the Christian demonic Beelzebub lore. It’s not working very well. They’re not an outgoing type of being, but they seem more brusque and businesslike rather than evil. The Doctor wouldn’t even recognize Ba‘al as a demon if she hadn’t been told.

Lucy is, by default, rather obvious.

“If I held a grudge against every person who’d ever tried to execute me, I’d be…well, a typical demon, really. Also, I lost count a long time ago, so not much point in being bothered.”

Crowley suddenly perks up and then launches himself to his feet. “Oh, I was wondering who the hell’d done that—” he says, vanishing mid-word. Judging by the sudden loud scuffle and yelling coming from the other end of Old Compton, Crowley didn’t go far.

“What? Or I guess, who?” her younger self asks, and the Doctor shrugs. She has no idea. Probably trouble, though. Usually is.

Crowley reappears with company. He’s gripping a black-haired, scrawny little sort by the arm. They have pointy hair and disastrous eye makeup that even the ancient Egyptians would consider overkill. Their black clothes are in a sort of old Earth punk configuration. Granted, the Doctor suspects maybe they’re not wearing clothing at all so much as a number of burnt rags stitched together, and that’s what nudges her brain in the demon direction.

Come to think of it, Scrawny Demon even looks Egyptian. The ancient sort, not the current residents.

The Doctor didn’t realize Crowley had his mic off until he reaches up to turn it back on. She glances at her other self before they both do the same. Might as well participate in the whatever-this-is.

“I found the twit who was trying to deface the gossipy spaceship with a binding spell,” Crowley announces, ignoring the demon’s attempts to escape his grasp. “This one is really bad at lurking. Shame, really.” He reaches into the scrawny bloke’s jacket and yanks out a mobile, snaps it in half with one hand, and tosses the pieces over his shoulder. “Bad at spying, too.”

“Who did you find lurking where they should not be?” Ba‘al asks before the Doctor can think to do so. “Yes, humans, really, please enter the strange traveling ship so that you do not die, thank you,” they add under their breath.

The Doctor’s younger self wedges in his own question. “What sort of demon are they? They’re not rating very high psychically, not the way the rest of you do.”

Crowley answers both questions at once. “Minor demon. Imp, really. They’re called Disposables.” He sneers at the imp’s attempts to break free, their shoddy black boots squeaking against the asphalt. “They’re based on the first imp to ever turn up in Hell, kind of a self-created idiot from a ritual or something gone wrong. I don’t really remember. Basically, they’re mass-produced constructs who have less brainpower than a Weeping Angel, and that lot operates mostly on instinct.”

The Doctor studies the minor demon curiously. He looks to be absolutely terrified of Crowley. “Not a very nice name, though, is it? No one should be disposable.”

“It’s_ Hell_,” Crowley reminds her dryly. “They’re not exactly out to make people feel warm and fuzzy about themselves.”

“None of the Disposables were to be in London at all,” Ba‘al says. “The Dark Council decided it was wiser to leave this city to its three resident angels, as they had no wish to challenge any of you. The message was passed down to the dukes. If there is a Disposable in London, then—”

“It’d have to have been here since Thursday at the least, yeah,” Crowley realizes, glancing at both the Doctor and her other self before glaring down at the imp. “What’re you doing up here?”

“Without permission, no less,” Lucy cuts in smoothly. From the way the imp blanches, the Doctor knows he heard her.

“N-n-nothing! Nothing at all, course!” the imp stutters.

Crowley stares at the imp, his eyes a faint glow of gold in the pre-dawn light. “Y’know, I haven’t eaten one of your lot in over five thousand years, because to be honest? You never bathe, makes you taste sodding awful. I learned my lesson and said I wouldn’t do it again, but it’s been a terrible day, and I’m really in the mood to make an exception.”

“Okay! All right! Bloody hell, no one has any courtesy anymore,” the imp complains. “Samael _is_ a prince of Hell.” He flinches back when Crowley looms closer. “How’m I supposed to know it’s disobeying orders to off an’ do what one of the big bosses wants?”

“Oh. Fuck,” Lucy states, sounding a bit choked.

Crowley abruptly drops the imp, who scuttles backwards on his elbows. “Go to Ba’al—right, fuck, go to Lord Beelzebub. Do whatever they say. Got it?”

“Yep, I got it, no worries at all, thank you, my Lord Crowley!” the imp babbles, and then vanishes.

“I’m not certain I’m grateful for the provided assistance,” Ba‘al says a moment later.

Crowley is busy pulling a disgruntled face. “Lord? What the fuck?” he mouths, and then speaks up. “Lucy, did you seriously come up here without warning the rest of the Dark Council that you and Samael had been on the outs for thousands of years, and that they should spread the word and ignore Samael if he asks them to do things?”

“I thought it was beyond obvious that Samael was persona non grata after not being seen for thousands years!” Lucy responds. “You lived amongst them, Crowley—you should know.”

“No, I lived_ here_, and went Downstairs only when I couldn’t avoid it, and stayed the Heaven away from anyone of higher rank unless that _also _couldn’t be helped!” Crowley snaps. “And I tended to stick with Ba‘al’s court, not anyone else’s!”

“This is bad, right?” Jack cuts in. “I’m assuming so. I mean, usually it is, and I’m not often wrong.”

Lucy’s voice is a low growl that makes the Doctor’s hair want to stand on end. “It means that Samael could have gathered powerful demons to support his attempt at revenge aside from Typhaon. Some will recognize my authority and retreat, but Samael has ways of charming others into doing as he says. It would be wise to assume that most of his allies will not depart.”

“I cannot bloody believe you didn’t sack him before you left Hell!” Israfil shouts.

Crowley lifts his sunglasses long enough to rub at his eyes again. “It’s politics, you lot. Warning the others about Samael is one thing, but sacking him is something else. If Lucy had properly sacked the bastard at any point instead of it just being implied that Samael was still hanging about somewhere Below, Lucy would have had to _replace_ him. First problem would have been that replacement’s lack of power—they wouldn’t hold a candle to Ba‘al, Mammon, Asmodeus, Berith, Dagon, and Belphegor. But in the lower ranks? Oh, there are plenty of contenders. Lucy would have been dealing with a war in about a day.”

“You could have done it,” Lucy comments in a mild voice.

Crowley inhales, coughs, and then starts laughing. “Please tell not-Hastur that the next time you see him. I want pictures of the face he makes.”

Lucy sounds smug. “I take it you approve. I did think you would appreciate the idea of his reaction, if not the responsibility of a throne. Unless archangels have decided to consider themselves above such things as petty revenge?”

“No, we’re really not,” Crowley replies. “Archangels are bastards.”

“No, you’re a bloody Healer,” Israfil interjects crossly. “We’re in an entirely different category of bastard!”

“I will certainly attest to that,” Michael says dryly.

“All right. That’s it, I know your voice and I know your bloody face,” Sandshoes interrupts. “Why the hell did you try to kill myself and Rose in Bethlehem? Because if it’s for looking like the gingers, that’s only an acceptable excuse as long as you’re actually colorblind!”

Michael sniffs. “Hair dye does exist, Time Lord.”

Sandshoes isn’t having it. The Doctor doesn’t blame him; she was just as miffed when she recognized the Celestial and his bloody glowing sword. “Having met this Samael bloke several years ago, I can say with absolute certainty that_ I do not psychically resemble a demon!_ Also, there is no tattoo on my face!”

There is a very long pause. The Doctor grins, aware that everyone on their little collective’s communications signal is listening with baited breath. This is definitely one of the more entertaining evacuations she’s ever participated in.

“I was hungover,” Michael mutters in a rush of air.

“What was that? I couldn’t hear it. Must be a bad signal,” Saraquel says gleefully.

“I was hungover, all right?” Michael yells. “It was a celebrated birth and I hadn’t had proper wine in thousands of years!”

Crowley’s eyebrows arch up over the top of his glasses. “Aziraphale, you got the Archangel Michael shitfaced, and you never told me? I’m hurt, I really am.”

“I couldn’t tell you at the time. You were off in South America pretending to be Quetzalcoatl!” Aziraphale retorts in irritation.

“Pretending?” Crowley looks insulted. “I actually _was_ Quetzalcoatl, thank you very much.”

“Well, that explains a lot,” Sandshoes says after a moment of utter silence. The Doctor quietly wonders if you can undo a part of your life that you were done with nearly two thousand years ago, because oh, this is so very awkward. No wonder she’d gotten such an interesting greeting from the folks in that part of South America. She’d thought it was just leftovers from one of her older trips, but apparently not.

“You were the Mesoamerican god of wind and knowledge.” Aziraphale sounds like he’s buried his face in his hands. “Why, Crowley?”

“Because chicha is fucking amazing, that’s why.”

Saraquel lets out a peal of delighted laughter. “You mean you got utterly pissed and went flying without bothering to hide from the humans.”

Crowley shrugs. “Same thing.”

* * * *

Wilf smiles to himself as he looks up “chicha” on the laptop Crowley left for him to use. Unlike his old one, it has a proper webcam, and Sylvia can just spin in her grave if she needs to. He misspells the word, but adding alcohol gets him where he wants to go on that lovely Wikipedia thing they’ve put together over the years.

He listens to some rather well-rehearsed sounding outrage from Michael and Gabriel’s lot regarding wings and humans and impersonating—or accidentally creating—new deities, and thinks he might like to try this chicha drink after they’ve saved London. He’s not so fond of the way it’s fermented, but he’ll give most things a try at least once.

“Still a bit worried about the timing,” Wilf listens to Donna say. “I mean, we went out and painted a bunch of demon-repelling symbols and now Soho is bleedin’ empty. We could’ve done something else instead of wasting time with that.”

“Not really, not when we hadn’t yet recognized the Racnoss problem,” Israfil comments.

“Excuse you, that was _me_ recognizing it, not we.”

“Whatever, Brother,” Israfil glibly replies. Crowley scoffs and says something rude, making Wilf smile. It’s still nice to know there’s not much difference between alien siblings and human ones.

“Actually, those symbols are still bloody useful, pun not intended,” Crowley adds.

“They won’t do anything to the Racnoss—unfortunately—but the demons Samael brings with him will still be aware of those warded doors,” Aziraphale says. “That particular project was not a waste of time in the slightest.”

“Okay, them being aware of it is nice an’ all. What good does it do _us?_” Mickey asks.

“We’ve anti-demon sigils painted in Celestial blood entirely surrounding the area where the fight against Samael is to take place,” Aziraphale explains, sounding a bit tetchy about it. “That circle won’t stop any demon who is bound and determined to proceed beyond that point, but they’ll feel the strength of that warding circle. Until they’re certain of what sort of line they’re attempting to cross, they won’t do it.”

“That’s if we let any of them get that far,” Gabriel says. “Which we won’t.”

“Yes, that,” Aziraphale confirms. _Definitely_ tetchy that time, Wilf thinks. “Between our presence and the distraction of feeling trapped within that rather large warded circle, the sigils prove their usefulness.”

“Hey, I was happy with, ‘they’ll be distracted enough not to go running off to muck about with the evacuation,” Martha says to appease Aziraphale. Wilf thinks that’s quite nice of her. He smiles a bit and then switches off his mic for his lot and turns on the other ear-piece that was dropped off for him about an hour ago.

“You still there, Nat boy?”

“It’s _just _Nat, thanks,” the lad replies, sighing. “Yeah, Gramps. How’re the nutters doing on their end?”

“Wilf, please,” Wilf says, just to continue to be a cheeky bugger. “From the sounds of it, we’re not doing all that bad. How’s that alien tech life-signs board looking?”

“We really are doing as well as that Magambo lady says we are. I’m claiming credit for part of this success, coordinating transport as I am,” Nat says. “Also, you know a _lot_ of weird people, Wilf.”

“Don’t I know it,” Wilf agrees. “You’re alien; I’m assumin’ you can say the same.”

“Oh, yeah.” Nat sounds pleased. “We should meet up when this nonsense is over. I like meeting humans who don’t scream at the sight of people like me. Also, I wanna introduce you to my them-friend.”

“Them-friend? That’s a new term for me, Nat.”

“Well, they’re gender-neutral, and we’re dating but we’re not but we’re married but we’re not? Seffie’s culture’s a bit weird,” Nat tries to explain. “Was hoping Earth would maybe simplify a bit of that, but oi. Seffie’s worth the trouble, though.”

Wilf smiles. “The best ones usually are. Meeting up sounds lovely. It’d be nice to introduce you to my Donna. Donna Noble, she is. Traveled with the Doctor for a while.”

Nat whistles through the comm. “Donna Noble. You don’t mean _the_ Donna Noble, do you? Red hair, pale skin, saved the universe?”

Wilf coughs when he swallows a sip of water wrong in surprise. “Your lot still remember my Donna doing all that?”

“It’s really her?” Nat whispers. “Cor, blimey, bugger, and every other British term I can think of. Donna Noble. You’re Donna Noble’s grandfather.”

“Yes, I am,” Wilf says proudly, wiping a few silly tears from his eyes. They remember her. Even with that bloody time reset…the universe remembers her. “What do your lot say about my Donna?”

“Well, most of the universe knows her name, what she looks like. There are a lot of stories, probably what you Earthers call tall tales, folk tales. We all know she really did do _something_ to save our collective arses, but the specifics are pretty much lost to history. Most civilized systems and governments out there make sure she’s in the history books, though. It’ll probably remain humanity’s shining moment until you lot finally get off your backsides and figure out space travel all proper like. Hitching rides with random aliens doesn’t count.”

“We’ll get there,” Wilf says, even though he’s watched so much of their progress slide backwards even as other things leapt forwards. “I know we do.”

“Yeah, we’re definitely gettin’ a coffee when this evac is done, mate. That sounded like a man who’s dead certain he knows a bit of the future.”

“Don’t lose my number, then,” Wilf says. “I want to—I want to hear the stories you know about my Donna, even the tall tales part.”

“Sure, mate,” Nat agrees. “Anything you wanna hear.”

* * * *

“So, that’s it, then,” the younger Doctor announces, pocketing his sonic screwdriver. The Doctor’s eldest self gives the singularity diverter one more curious nudge with her boot and seems satisfied with the results. “Everything’s done, ready to go, and we’ve got…”

“Eight minutes until dawn,” Crowley answers. He’s been lounging on the asphalt, flat on his back and staring up at the sky, since his last jaunt to pop off and speak to Aziraphale. The few stars that dare London’s lights are long gone. The sky is much closer to true dawn, with a hint of pink and orange in the east even though everything down here is still wrapped in blue. Crowley has always liked this time of day as long as he was already awake for it. “That’s eight minutes better than you lot thought you’d manage.”

“I might’ve overestimated the numbers a bit,” Not-Jane admits. “Better to have too much than too little, I’ve learned. If I gave people an accurate number, they’d just off and make a complete mess of everything.”

Crowley sits up and grins. “You lied.”

Not-Jane rolls her eyes. “I estimated.”

“Whatever.”

“Now _that_ idea is something I’d like to have stick around in my head,” the younger Doctor says while pointing at Not-Jane. “But I’ll go out on a limb and guess that it doesn’t.”

“Nah. It’d make things too easy.” Not-Jane sighs. “I mean, not like that can ever be allowed, right?” She abruptly sits down cross-legged on the street, right next to the diverter. “I just realized that I’ve absolutely _had _it with complicated emergencies! There has got to be something uncomplicated for me to do after this!”

“There probably isn’t,” Not-Jane’s younger self replies. “Not in my experience. Not in yours, either, judging by that bit of a sulk you’re working on.”

Crowley gives them a look that probably has a ridiculous amount of fondness in it. Then he snaps his fingers: a wine bottle appears in his free hand; the three new wine flutes he holds gently in the hand that did the snapping. Then he glares at the wine bottle until the cork ejects itself and lands somewhere off down Old Compton Street.

“I am not getting soused right now,” Not-Jane protests, but she still accepts one of the filled wine flutes when Crowley passes it over.

“I’ll take it anyway,” the Doctor declares, reaching down to take his. Crowley figures that one for the Doctor who paces and works his way through an emergency. Not-Jane just seems to be utterly done with everything. “What shall we drink to?”

“I’m drinking to calming the fuck down,” Crowley explains. “Wine’s been soothing my nerves for thousands of years; why stop now?” He sets the bottle aside and takes a sip of a gloriously bittersweet red. He’s fond of sweet, more willing to linger over a tawny port or a properly aged Lambrusco Salamino, but sometimes a strong Aglianico crafted wine is best. It always reminds him of ancient Rome. The Republic, not the Empire, which has the side benefit of sounding like a Star Wars reference.

“And also, I’m definitely drinking to the idea of not dying. I’m fond of that part.”

Not-Jane smiles. “I can do that one. Here’s a toast to none of us dying today.”

“Agreed,” the Doctor says. They’re sitting too far apart for glasses to touch, but the gesture is still properly adhered to. Crowley hears the gentle chime of glass, but he made it happen because he wanted it to. He salutes his daughter with his flute of wine when she gives him a narrow-eyed glare, recognizing the reminder, and then drinks it down. Winding her up a bit is fun…which is probably why Aziraphale does it to Crowley whenever he can get away with it.

Crowley glances around, taking advantage of the quiet to pour a second glass. That’s the thing; it’s _quiet_. He thought it was creepy when everyone was indoors instead of roaming about on a Friday night, but a Soho that’s entirely vacant of people is blessed spooky, and it’s not the sort of spooky he’s a fan of.

“You think Samael will be right on time?” Not-Jane asks. “Five o’clock and a giant demonic idiot pops up through the road like a jack-in-the-box?”

“Probably,” Crowley mutters, thinking about how Lucy already played a game of Pop-Goes-the-Demon last August. If Samael went for the same sort of demonic body, at least it’ll be a familiar sight.

Granted, Lucifer had an entire strip of airport tarmac to break through. Greek Street and Old Compton are bloody cramped in comparison.

“I’d rather Central London be entirely empty, myself,” the Doctor says. “I know we’re getting close to that point, but close isn’t a complete evacuation.”

Crowley shakes his head. “Samael won’t be late. He’ll be perfectly on time, just to be a prick.”

“Right, then.” The Doctor hands back his empty wine flute, though Not-Jane is still clutching hers rather possessively for someone who didn’t want to be sloshed right now. “One minute until dawn.”

Crowley eyes the empty glasses he’s now holding in both hands and then miracles them back to his kitchen. Not-Jane tilts her glass back until it’s empty and then hands it over to Crowley. Three used wine glasses should now be lining his sink, joined just after that by a re-corked bottle that still has a fair amount of wine in it.

When it happens, the sensation makes Crowley grit his teeth. A _lot_ of beings just passed through the dimensional barrier between Hell and Earth. It’s a sour note in the ground beneath his feet, a swiftly approaching mass of wrong. “They’ve caught up to us.” He checks his watch, which is ticking its way fifteen seconds past 4:57 in the morning. The sun is officially cracking the horizon line. “If I was right about 5:00 in the morning, we’ve got less than three minutes.”

“We’re on our way back right now,” Michael says through the ear-piece.

“Get into the warded circle, right bleedin’ _now_!” Crowley snaps.

“Got to turn on the diverter first!” Not-Jane powers up the device with rushed typing and a harsh electric whine before running to join Crowley and the Doctor in the warding circle.

“I really do hope this shielding bit works,” the Doctor says.

“The maths are just fine. Aziraphale knows what he’s doing—” Crowley throws up his arm to shield his face when the street in front of them explodes. Instead of a roadway, it’s a bloody volcanic eruption of grit, tar, chunks of asphalt, and burning sulfur. He can’t even see well enough to know if Samael has put in an appearance yet, or if the prick is just showing off.

“Sulfuric acid. My favorite,” the Doctor complains cheerfully. Crowley chances a glance over his shoulder to find that both of them have reddened eyes from the air and gives the wind a nudge. A breeze pops up to carry the sulfuric acid and stench in the opposite direction.

“You know, it’s too bad we couldn’t arrange to make this easier,” Not-Jane says as the ground rumbles beneath their feet. Samael isn’t the only one about to show himself, but there is too much debris in the air. All he can see of the site further down Greek Street is a hint of someone’s flaming sword. “You know, if we didn’t have to goad him into trying to take what he wants before shoving all of time and space down his throat.”

Crowley turns around again. “You mean with, oh, say, a metaphysical flash drive?”

Not-Jane frowns. “You said that pendant Samael wanted wasn’t part of the trap.”

“Did I? I recall saying it wasn’t part of the getting-him-out-of-Rose trap.” Crowley smirks at them both. “I mean, I put a bit of myself into that pendant, and Samael was greedy enough to eat it…”

* * * *

The Doctor looks up from the TARDIS viewscreen showing him the humans’ progress through the TARDIS. “That sounds like a—”

He has no chance to finish that statement, because suddenly his eldest self is yelling in outrage. “I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU DID THAT! I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU SLIPPED SAMAEL A BIOLOGICAL INTERFACE PROGRAM RIGHT UNDER MY NOSE!”

“He did what now?” Wilf asks.

Mickey starts laughing. “Crowley hacked a demon!”

“I _did_ say Samael wasn’t going to get what he expected to out of that pendant,” Crowley says.

“RIGHT UNDER MY BLOODY NOSE AND_ I MISSED IT!_”

The Doctor runs his hand through his spiked hair and tries not to fidget in place. “Yeah, okay, that is _definitely_ my dad.”

* * * *

When the dust begins to settle and the Doctor can bloody well see again, the noise of the street eruption hasn’t stopped. No, wait, that part went quiet. The racket is from Samael towering over them, roaring, just like he did on Krop Tor while he was a dispossessed beastie. He doesn’t even look any different from what she remembers.

She doesn’t need to check a timepiece to know that it’s exactly five o’clock. Crowley was spot on with that prediction.

“You couldn’t even try going with a different look?” Crowley is asking snidely, head tilted back so he can stare up at Samael. “You’re a bloody walking cliché!”

“Yeah, well. Red skin, horns, fiery glowing eyes, wings, giant teeth—gotta milk the old demon mystique for all it’s worth,” the Doctor’s younger self says. He’s grinning in that familiar all-teeth way they had when it wasn’t really meant to be a grin at all.

Without looking away from Samael, Crowley holds out his hands. “This is probably gonna be a bit weird.”

Her younger self doesn’t hesitate to take Crowley’s offered hand. “Probably done weirder.”

“No sense on letting the big beastie step on anything,” the Doctor says, and grabs her father’s hand. Her hands have felt too small since she regenerated into being too bloody short, but it doesn’t feel strange right now. Crowley’s fingers twine with hers, like it’s a lock clicking into place, physical and psychic both. “Best get a wiggle on.”

“Oi, now, don’t you start with that, too—” Crowley starts protesting, but he’s drowned out by Samael opening his great stupid mouth, and by the rather loud yelling coming from down the street. The Doctor supposes that Samael’s friends must’ve joined him, but she’s a bit too busy to take a gander at their other spot of chaos.

“CROWLEY!”

The Doctor can literally sense it when Crowley rolls his eyes. “Yeah, hello, you’re not the first overgrown demon I’ve seen pop out of a roadway this year. Not impressed, just bored.”

She closes her eyes while Samael shatters windows to announce how offended he is. One of the many benefits of being a Time Lord: she only needs a moment to be ready, only a moment to tap into her sense of space and time.

When the Doctor opens her eyes, her fingers are already tipped with gold. She glances over at her younger self, seeing the fire of the Vortex alight in his eyes. _We’re ready_.

“HEY! SAMAEL!” Crowley yells. “WANKER!”

Samael doesn’t shrink, but bends down to stare them in the eyes. “You have already lost. Insults will only bring about a swifter death for you and the Timeless Child!”

“That’s rude,” Crowley says. “That’s not even the right name. By the way, did you enjoy eating that pendant you took from me?”

The Doctor will give him this much, at least. Samael isn’t stupid. He rears up and back, the flames in his eyes burning brighter. “WHAT DID YOU DO?”

“Should’ve done your homework, you fucking bassstard,” Crowley hisses. “Because I was _really_ good at my job!” He reaches out psychically and grabs hold of something within Samael, a bit of energy that reveals itself to the Doctor’s mind as shifting gold-blue light.

_You’re going to end up being the focus!_ the Doctor’s younger self realizes about a microsecond before she does. _You can’t! You’ll burn yourself to ash!_

_No, I might burn this corporation to ash._ Crowley is utterly unconcerned. _Myself will actually be just fine. Just…discorporated. Again. Three times in a year. Fuuuuuuuck, I hope I don’t do that._

“YOU HAVE LINKED US?” Samael starts laughing as he discovers that blue-gold bit of energy. “NOW THERE IS NOTHING STOPPING ME FROM TAKING _EVERYTHING_ YOU ARE!”

“Uh, yeah, actually, there is. My boyfriend’s pretty thorough.” Crowley inclines his head down at the warding circle. “You, though? You’re kinda fucked.”

Then Crowley opens up the link between himself and Samael. The Doctor catches a brief glimpse of cascading bright gold and fathomless black—the time within the Vortex, and the void between the stars. Then she isn’t looking at it, but awash in it. Every aspect of time and every moment in the whole of creation flows through her mind.

It’s a current that has no end. Infinity always wins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm hiding on Tumblr @deadcatwithaflamethrower and sometimes I talk back.


	26. Demonic Interference

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> London's evacuation is underway, Samael is annoying, Martha is doing a decent job of pretending that angelic miracles are normal, and Ianto Jones is just fucking done with everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cheer-read by @norcumi and beta'd by me and hopefully not a disaster like the last chapter of OaLC was. (No, really, it was, I should have waited until my sodium levels were back up.)

Tish Jones is not a happy individual. She’s also quite tired of the jokes about Mr. and Mrs. Jones due to Ianto’s presence via satellite feed. From the expression on his face as he regards the CDS, Ianto was absolutely done with the joke about five minutes after the evacuation officially started.

Of course, Ianto has no qualms about being exceptionally blunt with the Chief of Defence Staff for the UK, but Tish isn’t the one married to the highest-ranking member of Torchwood aside from the Queen. “Sir, I understand how you feel—believe me, I do, because at least Londoners have drills and an organization whose entire job is meant for this sort of thing. Cardiff has a _zoning map_,” Ianto says dryly.

“Cardiff is rather used to this sort of situation,” the PM’s representative counters before CDS Hughes has a chance. Tish would much rather be dealing with the Home Secretary, but that one is out of the country, vacationing in a place without a bloody satellite signal for her mobile.

Ianto snorts. “Cardiff is so bloody used to aliens that nobody runs anymore when we tell them to. At least your civilians are actually moving things along.”

Sir Hughes gestures for the Defence Secretary to be quiet. Tish resolves to look up the bloke’s name again, because it’s so forgettable that she’s doing exactly that. “Thank you for reminding me that the situation could be worse, Mister Jones.”

“I can do you one better, sir. It very well could be even worse, as everyone who was summarily discharged from UNIT without due notice could have stayed home.” Kate’s satellite link has dropped several times in the last hour, and Tish strongly suspects the tech team in Torchwood Quebec is all but ready to string cans together in desperation. “And then we’d have a shortage of volunteers that London can’t afford.”

“UNIT’s disbandment wasn’t my decision, Brigadier.” Sir Hughes sighs. “No one quote me when I say that it was, however, a very _stupid_ decision. In the meantime, we will all be doing what we can. Someone update me on the situation with blockading the Underground access points into Central London.”

Tish bites back an unhappy scowl when she realizes that’s her. She should have passed that off to Ianto. “That’s largely completed, only a few tunnels remaining as of the last report I received, sir,” she says. “But our teams on the ground wanted everyone to remember that the blockaded tunnels are a temporary measure—it will slow down the Racnoss, give us time to evacuate Greater London, but it won’t stop them.”

“Fair enough,” Sir Hughes says, frowning. “With that in mind, I want military squads, at least four men each, standing guard at _every_ tunnel entrance. Four in the front, four in the rear, and I want them in _every_ Underground station in Greater London. I don’t care if the station is in service or not, and I don’t care if it’s been turned into a bloody museum. I want men there with appropriate armament, and Goddammit, give them _lights_. We don’t need a friendly fire body count because a few civvies were foolish enough to drop down into the Underground from unauthorized access points.

“Now, then: Mister Patel, tell us what your people need.”

“Uh, right, sir.” Nik Patel from the ESCG reminds Tish of someone who found their way to the boardroom by mistake, was handed the launch codes for every nuclear site in the world, and told he was in charge of it all from now on. Poor sod; she knows just how he feels. “Mass Evacuation and Shelter is setting up camps in—well—” He rips a paper map out of one of his manila folder stacks and spreads it across a projection table that is more than capable of giving them something a bit more up to date. He’s nervous, and he’s the pen-and-paper type. Great.

At least things got a bit easier to deal with when the tunnel CCTV footage of the first Racnoss scout’s arrival was played for everyone. Once the CDS of the UK was convinced that London was under imminent global threat, organizing the evac began happening at full speed.

“I understand the goal is for placement outside Greater London, beyond the M25—why is that, by the way?” Patel asks as he yanks a blue Sharpie marker out of his trouser pocket.

“I’m not yet privy to that information, myself,” Sir Hughes says. The Defence Secretary also shakes his head.

“I’m given to understand that the M25 is going to be used to host a secondary quarantine line similar in nature to the quarantine currently surrounding Central London,” Ianto says, and Kate nods affirmation. “But I don’t yet know much more than that.”

“Can’t say the very tall inferno around Central London isn’t doing a good job,” Kate says. “I understand that the secondary line will be even more impressive.”

“The alien lot are complaining that it’s taking quite a bit of altitude to get past it, too,” Wilf adds.

“Thank you, Mister Mott,” Sir Hughes manages, though he looks pained by the mention of aliens. Wilf doesn’t want to be the one on the line, but Tish is still trying to get the right sort of secured mobile out to the mysterious Nat in Redhill.

“The only thing I could get out of one of our allies was, ‘I never fixed it, that’s why the M25,’” Tish informs them. “I was sort of afraid to ask what that meant, but the M25 _is_ the only largely uninterrupted zone that surrounds the whole of Greater London. If we’re fencing in thousands of overgrown alien centaur-spiders that would be quite fond of eating the entire Earth, then I say they should be just as vexed by the M25 as we are.”

“Amen,” says the Defence Secretary, which makes Tish like him just a bit—which still is not much at all. Just because she can’t remember his name doesn’t mean she’s forgotten his politics.

“Right. M25 it is, then.” Patel uncaps the marker and starts circling townships outside of Greater London and the M25. “Based on population density, or ease of travel for the roadways set aside from civilians who are self-evacuating, Mass Evac and Shelter is setting up shop in South Ockendon and Grays, Fiddlers Hamlet, and Brentwood for east London. Westside is working on Slough, Beaconsfield, and Hemel Hempstead. Redhill, Oxted, and Chatham are readying themselves for everyone coming from the Mitcham and Dartford evac transfer sites set up for everyone living south of the Thames. That keeps us largely out of Surrey; even putting an evac site in Slough is a danger if the M25 quarantine is breached by your planet-eating spiders, so that’s as far south as MEG is willing to go. Up north, London is being hosted by St. Albans, Potters Bar, and Chesthunt. Bit closer together than I’d prefer, but we prioritized areas outside London with plentiful accommodations and plentiful stable land that isn’t a bog.”

Nik takes out a red Sharpie and begins circling smaller areas outside every named township. “Now, by military order, every hotel, inn, hostel, and bloody cyber-rentable vacation housing outside of London is to open their doors to evacuated citizens, but none of us here are stupid. We know that’s not going to be enough, even if we’ve got people in cots taking up every bit of space in every hotel conference room. Won’t even matter how many people drive off to stay with family. The numbers don’t work. We’re going to have overflow. Every site _must_ have a clear field for mobile housing, tents, whatever we can get our grubby hands on, _and_,” Nik pauses and glances up at them all, one face at a time. “Every site _must_ have a hospital setup that isn’t us simply relying on existing medical facilities. There are going to be injuries, there are going to be accidents, and there are people coming out of homes, hospices, and hospitals in London with nowhere else to go. Those people will need care, and they’ll need it promptly. Sir Hughes, I’m not lying when I say the ESCG needs every warm body from every available organization who isn’t already working the evacuation to assist us. Medical needs to have been set up bloody yesterday, and we’re going to need counts for housing once every other option is full up. Oh, and if someone would make a radio announcement for anyone who has a summer cottage or extra room at home and is willing to share space with London’s refugees? That’d be grand, because I want as few living in tents as possible. Large encampments are prone to disease, and that’s the last thing we need.”

_Pen-and-paper sort, and efficiently terrifying_, Tish thinks, not certain how she feels about that just yet. There is another distant rumble beneath her feet as Sir Hughes promises Patel that the ESCG and MEG will have what he can spare, but with nearly ten million people coming out of London, he can’t give Patel concrete numbers, not yet. “Understood,” Patel concedes. “Now, food and potable water…”

Tish has long since written off the rumbling as another one of the subway tunnels being blocked off by the time Patel reviews their ability to feed ten million relocated people. Kate then makes the same offer of assistance to the ESCG on UNIT’s behalf. She’s asking for Sir Hughes to reactivate one of UNIT’s standby uplinks so she can call in more assistance when Tish’s secondary ear-piece vibrates gently against her ear.

“Go ahead, Martha.” Just like that, Tish suddenly has everyone’s unwavering attention.

“Put me on speaker, Tish,” Martha says in her businesslike way. It’s the voice she uses when things are going to plan, but that doesn’t necessarily mean things are going _well_.

“One moment.” Tish fishes out her mobile and links up the signal. “Go ahead, Martha. You’re on speaker in front of Greater London’s finest.”

“Right then. This is Martha Jones, co-head of Torchwood London, reporting that the first wave of expected enemy combatants has entered Central London. Soho is now a no-go zone, and I want the man with the epic life-signs detector to do a sweep of every area around Soho. If we missed someone who needs to evac, I need to know right now.”

“Nat says he’s on it, love,” Wilf answers her. “So far turning up zero, but he’ll keep an eye out. He’s also sending you an update for the whereabouts of any other Central London types right now.”

“Any casualties, Mrs. Jones?” Sir Hughes asks.

“For the moment, fighting is contained to Soho while the rest of us continue with the evacuation. No known casualties at this time. Current numbers that just came in from Mister Nat there put us at only five percent of Central London’s population remaining for evac.”

The Defence Secretary stares at Tish’s mobile. “You’re telling us that we moved three hundred sixty thousand people in less than three hours. That’s impossible.”

“It’s the truth. According to the numbers, eighteen thousand nine hundred nineteen remain, and almost all of them are aboard transport, at the evac sites, or about to cross over into Greater London,” Martha reports. “Mickey is already organizing teams to retrieve the last few stubborn holdouts, but we’re both estimating a half-hour until Central London is clear of all civilians.”

“How the _hell_ did we pull that off?” Patel asks in flat disbelief.

“Miracles,” Martha replies, sounding a bit bemused. “So many miracles. Honestly, the Doctor is involved. Are you surprised?”

“No, just bloody grateful,” Sir Hughes admits. “The sooner the Doctor is available to help with emptying Greater London, the happier we’re all going to be.”

The Defence Secretary’s expression twists. Tish decides he must not like aliens. Still a wanker, then. “Is there any word on this expected second wave of enemy combatants? The…spiders?”

“All I can say is that the Racnoss are still inbound.” Tish winces when automatic weapons fire is heard clearly through her mobile’s speaker. “Gotta go, because there is _no bloody reason to be firing your weapon, soldier_—” Martha is already yelling as she hangs up. Tish desynchs her mobile from the ear-piece so she can properly receive other incoming calls.

“Can we maintain those same evacuation numbers and times for Greater London once the Doctor’s assistance is transferred out of Central London?” Sir Hughes asks.

“No,” Patel says bluntly before the Defence Secretary can open his mouth. “The cordon for Central London held three hundred seventy-eight thousand, seven hundred fifty-one people, and that isn’t counting the personnel and allies currently working to empty the area. The updated population numbers for Greater London put us a bit under eight point eight million, sir. Add the Central London evacuees back in and we’re up to over nine point one million.”

“Good heavens.” Sir Hughes runs his hand down his face. “Give me a number, Patel.”

Patel sighs. “If something miraculous occurs, again, then maybe twenty-four hours from the completion of Central London’s evac. That includes ESCG members and emergency services, military personnel, UNIT volunteers, and various random allies we’ve picked up overnight.”

Ianto voices Tish’s opinion for her. “Hurray,” he says flatly. “Evacuate all of Greater London by 06:00 Sunday morning. Why not.”

“Thirty hours is more realistic,” Patel adds. “But: planet-eating spiders. I want that miraculous twenty-four hours.”

“Is there anything else we should know about the Central London situation, Tish?” Kate asks when she notices that Tish still has her hand on that particular ear-piece, listening in on the chaos.

“No one’s dead or injured from that moment of stupidity, but they certainly woke up Martha’s legendary temper,” Tish replies. “I almost feel sorry for the stupid sod.”

“I don’t,” Sir Hughes says in dismissal. “They deserved it. Brigadier, by the authority I hold for the duration of this emergency, as witnessed by the Cabinet’s Secretary of Defence Michael Cooper, I am reactivating UNIT within the bounds of the United Kingdom. I don’t know if we’ll be able to keep it that way afterwards, but you’ve got leave to do what you need in order to secure us more manpower. I know you’re active in Torchwood at this time, but I ask that UNIT remain your priority until London is lacking in planet-eating spiders.”

Kate nods. “Done. My second-in-command can handle Torchwood’s Quebec facility. Hopefully none of us will regret this come Monday.”

Hughes grimaces. “At least you’re in Canada, Brigadier. UNIT’s priority, aside from the _planet-eating spiders_, my God, is assisting the ESCG. Secretary Cooper, if your office hasn’t already mobilized every single active member of emergency services that MEG doesn’t have a tag on, wake them up and get them involved. Then pull out the list for anyone retired, see if they’re fit for temporary duty, and get their arses involved, too. Move _your_ arse, too. I want to beat Patel’s twenty-four hour estimate by at least ten minutes.”

Patel reclaims his Sharpies, leaving the map in place. “I’ve a protégé who can assist you, Secretary. Come with me.”

“Tish?” Ianto taps his ear-piece. “Right now. Priority.”

“Got it.” Tish steps away from what is swiftly becoming a crowded tent as subordinates of all sorts flood in to receive their orders, or to listen in and then radio them out to other locations. She wouldn’t have chosen Heathrow as their primary hub for an evacuation, what with plans on the wall to board every plane to capacity until they run out of aircraft, but at least everyone knows how to find the place. She swaps channels on her primary ear-piece. “What is it, Ianto?”

“Jack’s down. His life-signs went offline about a minute ago.”

“Jesus.” Tish takes a moment to breathe. The poor bastard is immortal and she knows it, but even after the Year That Wasn’t, that bloody idiot dying still gives her a shock. “He should be up and about in another minute or so, though. Right?”

“Maybe. Not sure what took him down. Jack didn’t warn me.” Ianto sounds grim. “He was acting as sort of psychic backup for one of the two Doctors working with this Crowley bloke, the younger one, I think. Rose Tyler—and God but that’s weird—was doing the same for the other Doctor, the one who went with gender-swapping this go-round, and Crowley’s brother was backup for him. I don’t have life-signs detectors for the other two, but they’re not on-comm, Tish. None of them are. All I got out of Rose was something about the TARDIS before things went silent. Everyone Torchwood who is working the evac exit points on the other side of the cordon are still audible, but that’s it.”

“Shit. Shit!” Tish kicks at a bush and swears again as it tries to steal her shoe. “You think something’s wrong. What can we do?”

“Nothing, Tish.” She hadn’t seen Ianto look that frustrated in a long time. “We can’t do a damned thing.”

* * * *

Aziraphale swings his sword, but the demon covered in tree frogs (those _poor_ frogs) leaps back, far out of range unless Aziraphale wants to take flight. Everyone else is engaged with the demons who surged up through the broken asphalt that used to be the northern section of Greek Street. They started with forty, but ten of them saw Lucy and were immediately intelligent enough to join forces with their Prince. The remaining thirty demons maintain a foolish, fierce loyalty to Samael, and most of them, Aziraphale has discovered, are _very_ irritating.

No one steps up to take the tree-frog demon’s place. Aziraphale takes a swift glance at his pocket watch and is shocked to realize that it’s only four minutes past five o’clock.

Lucy and Ba‘al are regrouping with their claimed loyal demons, most of whom are still apologizing without stopping for breath. Those allied demons—honestly, the Not-Apocalypse has made things so bloody odd!—line themselves up on the west side of Greek Street, minus that unfortunate Disposable imp, who was discorporated by flying debris right at the start. Michael, Gabriel, Saraquel, Israfil, Captain Harkness, and Aziraphale make up the line guarding the east side.

The battle lines quickly fall apart again as the demons loyal to Samael renew their attack. This time, Aziraphale does not miss, and his enemy suffers a well-earned discorporation. He’d prefer to light his sword, if only for the intimidation factor, but Aziraphale doesn’t have the same control over his blade’s holy fire that Gabriel does. Of course, Aziraphale doesn’t think Lucy would complain overly much if Gabriel killed a demon instead of merely discorporating them for a swift return to Hell.

The Dark Council supposedly awaits those who are discorporated. Having seen Hell’s vengeance for himself, Aziraphale thinks the remaining demons fighting for Samael are being entirely foolish. Lucy did warn them, and she does not mince words. Death by holy fire would probably be kinder than whatever the lords of Hell are contemplating.

What concerns Aziraphale the most is that there has been no sign of Typhaon. It must have been the great demonic serpent who destroyed the roadway, given the size of the hole a literal demonic horde arose from, but…he isn’t here.

Typhaon was still Sandalphon not so very long ago. He was ruthless and cruel before his Fall, but also sharply intelligent. He must be planning something, or is assisting the Racnoss, or any number of options Aziraphale can’t even begin to concern himself with. Even angels can only do so many things at once.

Aziraphale turns to check on Crowley and the two versions of the Doctor. The warding circle is awash in gold fire intertwined with odd black energy. He takes a proud moment to note that the warding circle is working exactly the way Aziraphale intended it to, swinging at another demon that tries to invade his periphery.

The black and gold energy is streaming in a tangled rush right at Samael. His mouth and eyes resemble gaping holes, that energy filling them in a never-ending cascade. The demon is getting exactly what he wanted, still undaunted in his attempt to swallow infinity.

But: Samael is no longer howling about his impending victory. He’s just howling, the air ringing with the massive demon’s anger. The sight of Samael rearing back, snarling at the sky, is capturing everyone’s attention. The battle comes to a slow halt as Samael’s red skin begins to glow.

_Samael can’t contain it_, Aziraphale thinks._ He’s turning himself into a failing singularity. _That recognition fills him with fierce pride. When his love has time to plan a scheme, he is a true mastermind. It’s only sudden, emotion-laden decisions that can make Crowley flail in a panic. Too many people forget that about Crowley, often to their detriment.

Samael might have put them through a great deal of trouble in recent days, but he never stood a chance.

When things change, as they often do during a battle, events happen quickly. Later, Aziraphale will have to run the memory through his head several times in order to be certain he has it all.

“Something—something’s not right.” The tips of Jack’s fingers are glowing with the same gold and black energies swirling around the warding circle. “Rose?”

Aziraphale hears Rose’s voice through the ear-piece. “Bit busy right now trying to stop a very large sentient ship from panicking, thank you!”

“Bloody hell—same thing!” the Doctor sharing Crowley’s face blurts out, sounding a bit panicked, himself.

“Oh, for God’s sake—you behave yourself!” Donna yells. Aziraphale assumes she’s talking to her own version of the TARDIS. “You’re already doing exactly what he wanted, anyway!”

“But you lot are all right, yeah?” Mickey asks in concern. “Shit, I’m going to be out of signal range in a moment, we’re blowing the last tunnel—”

“The Doctor isn’t the one acting as the focus, Jack!” Rose suddenly shouts.

Aziraphale doesn’t see it. He hears it. The clatter of wood falling onto a walkway, like an old and heavy Victorian walking stick. The sound echoes off the brick and stone of the buildings that front both sides of Greek Street.

He whirls around to find Israfil’s staff on the ground. Israfil is standing on the walk, shoulders hunched, clutching his chest with his left hand. His skin is a horrible, papery grey. “Crowley. Let go,” he’s gasping. “For God’s sake, stop it, let it go, stop,_ stop_—!”

“Israfil!” Jack is on the move, seeing what none of them notice. The dagger in the enemy demon’s hands does not find its home in a Healer’s back, but in Jack’s chest.

Jack slumps to the ground without a sound. Aziraphale flinches as he feels life flee the human’s body. Saraquel dispatches the demon who killed Jack, his expression twisted with angelic wrath that no artist of the Renaissance would dare try to capture.

Aziraphale doesn’t realize Israfil is falling until after Ba‘al _screams_. The sound pierces his senses, and will haunt him for years to come. It also snaps his focus back to where it should already be. Aziraphale reaches out, but is too late to prevent Israfil from dropping to the ground.

His heart feels cold and heavy in his chest. No. No, they can’t be—

Aziraphale whirls around to view the circle and is promptly blinded as Samael roars out all of the energy he tried to eat. He brings up his arm to shield his eyes, catching sight of the oversized demon spewing a thick strand of brilliant fire and light directly at the singularity diverter.

The device does its job wonderfully. By the time Aziraphale blinks the spots from his corporation’s over-sensitive eyes, all of the energy Samael tried to consume is cutting through the sky, well on its way to the stars.

Samael’s massive corporation is no longer in evidence. The energy of infinity is disappearing from the warded circle, revealing three individuals who, at first, seem quite hale.

Aziraphale has just enough time to breathe a sigh of relief when the eldest version of the Doctor suddenly drops to Greek Street on her rear, visibly dazed. At the same time, Crowley’s legs give out. The younger Doctor grabs Crowley’s arm in an attempt to keep him upright.

Then the street beneath Crowley and the Doctors collapses into the pit, taking them with it. The warding circle is torn apart as the asphalt falls in broken chunks—as _they_ fall an unknown distance to the disturbed earth below.

_Oh, God_, Aziraphale thinks in blank shock. _Crowley_.

Then Michael yells, “What are you _doing?_”

* * * *

Anyone who asks Ba‘al what they were thinking once the fight is over, when all who could be saved now dwell in safety, receive the same answer: “I wasn’t.”

It isn’t avoidance. It’s the truth. They can narrate the events of that morning well enough, but that is all.

Ba‘al whips around at the sound of a falling staff, committing the grievous mistake of turning their back on an enemy. They are vaguely aware that Gabriel dispatches the demon, burning away the fool who tried to spear Ba‘al between the space of their wings. That sound, that echo of a falling staff striking stone, has haunted their dreams for untold millennia.

They are watching history repeat itself. Raphael is falling. He is falling again, staff dropped from his long fingers. Ba‘al does not see blood, but blood is not a requirement for death.

Ba‘al is told later that they scream. They don’t recall doing so. There is only the rush to Raphael’s side, his clothing reminding them of _now_, that this moment is not _then_. Ba‘al rests their hand on Israfil’s corporation, searching for life. They find it, but they are no Healer. They have no idea what remains to tie Israfil to life, so another method is necessary to secure it.

They will make certain that Israfil will not lose any more of his life.

When Ba‘al looks up, the fiery energy that washed away their sight of the warding circle, and of Samael, is gone. The young male Doctor is trying to keep Zaherael—Crowley, it is Crowley now!—from landing on the ground. The older Time Lord is already sitting there. She seems dazed and uncertain, but Ba‘al doesn’t know why.

The street collapses. Crowley, the Time Lords, the warding circle, the diverter, the protection circle that sheltered it—all drop from their sight, into the pit. They see no sign of Samael, but they can sense him. He is unmistakable.

Ba‘al rises and turns. Michael stands closest to them.

They do not care that it is a holy blade. What matters is what it can do to a demon.

Ba‘al yanks the sword from Michael’s loose grasp and runs forward, calling forth their wings. They keep them tucked in close to their back, but the pit might be deep. They will be ready.

Time Lords are resilient; Crowley is an archangel. Their survival is not in doubt. Ba‘al thinks only of Samael.

Ba‘al leaps into the pit that was once a human street. They spread their wings, catching enough air to avoid crashing into the rubble. Those from the warding circle are sprawled among the mess. The signal diverter is in pieces.

Crowley’s corporation lies closest to Samael’s remaining form, face down and unmoving. His red hair resembles the spill of human blood.

Ba‘al remembers moments from before the First War, when they would sit between Zaherael and Raphael, their heart full of peace. Ba‘al would laugh as Zaherael made horrified noises and pretended it necessary to escape whenever Raphael kissed them, but Zaherael never went far.

Ba‘al loved both of the Healers. The one they wished to wed, and the one who would be their family, for there was no claiming one without claiming the other. If Zaherael ever found a spouse, Ba‘al understood that such claiming would be similar. Never one without the other.

They cannot do this without them. They cannot remember and continue to be themself if they are alone.

They will not be. They will stop this. No one will ever again suffer at Samael’s hand.

Samael is exactly where Ba‘al knew to find him. He has lost his ludicrously oversized corporation, and looks as he did during the First War. Samael wasn’t recalled to Hell, and Heaven has not wanted Samael for a very long time.

The foul one smiles at Ba‘al as they approach. Michael’s sword is hidden behind the feathers of their wing. “Lord Beelzebub,” Samael greets them. “Do I have allies in Hell, after all?”

His smile is charming beneath his blonde curls. It is charismatic. It is as insincere as his black, fathomless eyes.

It occurs to Ba‘al, only then, that Samael has always been a fool.

“Actually, I went a bit native,” Ba‘al says, and swings Michael’s heavy blade while Samael’s features are still twisting to display confusion. The sword’s holy light passes through Samael’s corrupt soul, tearing him asunder. He doesn’t even have time to scream.

A sharp burst of energy burns Ba‘al’s corporation as it shoots outward, knocking them back. Michael’s sword falls from their hand and clatters along the broken pieces of asphalt as they fall down.

Ba‘al draws in an unnecessary breath and checks to be certain they are not fatally injured. They are not, so they relax and rest their head in the dirt.

It is done. Samael is gone.

* * * *

Crowley wakes up feeling burnt. That surge of panicked adrenaline makes certain that he isn’t just conscious, but _alert_, looking for the bubbling sulfur that must have caused him to—

No. He breathes out in relief without lifting his head. It’s the inside of his head that feels burnt from channeling a bit more energy than he’d expected to cope with. Israfil had been yelling at Crowley to knock off with it, that it was too much for them both, but then everything would be shit and Samael would still be a giant, raging prick. Not-Jane might’ve picked up on the difficulty and kept them from dying, but his memory of everything after time and space ate his brain is rubbish.

Crowley reaches out and mentally nudges his brother, feeling returning consciousness and the first stirring of Israfil’s temper. Like it was _Crowley’s_ fault that Samael needed to eat a bit more of infinity before he sicked it back up. Crowley hopes the new black hole is a nice one, because it’s definitely a bit bigger than planned.

Now: where the fuck is he?

Crowley opens his eyes. He isn’t lying on a smeared warding circle. He’s face-down in the dirt, surrounded by broken bits of pipe and wiring, chunks of asphalt—oh. The warding circle must have collapsed into the pit. For…reasons, or something.

Crowley lifts his head just in time to witness Ba‘al destroy Samael’s soul with Michael’s own bloody sword. That is definitely worth being conscious for. “Sodding _finally_!” he rasps.

He flinches as Samael’s death releases a final burst of energy. It isn’t him; not any of it is Samael. It smell-tastes more like the first black hole that sheltered Samael’s prison.

That last energy burst makes the burnt feeling in Crowley’s head feel worse, but leftover cosmic energy won’t really hurt him. Not when Crowley once built entire galaxies, spun stars between his fingers, birthed nebula by stirring dust and fire together and lighting it with the breath of the universe.

He can remember more of those details now. Brilliant.

Then Ba‘al lets out a groan of pain that still manages to sound stilted and irritable. Crowley clambers awkwardly to his feet and scrabbles his way over to Ba‘al. “You picked up a holy sword, you complete sodding idiot! Show me your bloody hands!”

Ba‘al looks up at him, frowning in consideration. “I’m fine,” they protest, but hold up both hands for inspection after Crowley glares right back at them.

Crowley runs a gentle finger along the skin of Ba‘al’s palms. They’re a bit red, but not blistered. Not burnt to char. There is no damage to their true self, either.

Ba‘al Zebûb, First Lord of Hell, greatest of the Dark Council aside from Lucy herself, wielded a holy blade without burning off their own hands.

Great bleeding_ fuck_.

Ba‘al’s eyes finally widen with the same realization. “I…I’m actually _fine_. How?”

“Balance,” Crowley whispers. Ba‘al found the pivot point between Celestial and Fallen, a place Crowley was well acquainted with. Israfil and Crowley weren’t even trying to push them in that direction; they’d just wanted Ba‘al’s sanity and returned health. “Congratulations. Right now you’re probably immune to holy water. Don’t suggest taking a bath in it, though.”

They blink a few times and then let out a faint snicker. “I would require a rubber duck.”

“Oi, you have to provide your own duck.”

“Check on the Time Lords,” Ba‘al mutters after Crowley helps them upright. “I wish to sit here for a few moments and gloat over Samael’s defeat.”

Crowley picks up Michael’s sword—Ba‘al looks resentfully grateful at not having to carry it again—and turns back to the others. He’s going to be covered in bruises tomorrow, but angelic and demonic corporations can take a lot of damage. He has no idea how Time Lords cope with suddenly falling into a steep pit with a second, bottomless crater at its center.

Turning his back on that gaping hole makes cold fingers steal down Crowley’s spine. He can’t hear or scent the Racnoss yet, but they’re coming.

To his relief, Time Lords handle things pretty well. The younger Doctor is already on his feet, wiping dust and debris from his face and clothes. Not-Jane is slowly standing up, one arm extended for balance. “Oh, my bloody ectospleen, _again_,” she complains, clutching at her left side.

“What’d you go and do to it?” the younger Doctor asks. “Hard to damage that one on a normal day.”

Not-Jane shrugs and winces in sudden pain. “Wasn’t a normal day, really. Got hit by a sonic mine a few months into this regeneration. Spleen’s been a bit tetchy whenever I take a tumble ever since. At least my entospleen is behaving itself. Can’t have both of them on the fritz.”

Crowley stares at them. “So, Time Lords have two hearts, two spleens, more than one brain stem—oh, that’s neat—but only two lungs?”

“Respiratory bypass system,” the Doctor explains. “Means we can hold our breath for a really long time. Useful if you get exposed to the vacuum of space on accident.”

“And it’s truly embarrassin’ how many times that last bit has happened,” Not-Jane grouses.

“CROWLEY!” Michael yells, his tone definitely a warning. Crowley looks up to discover that the road is a good twenty feet over their heads. Great job, Samael. Thanks for that.

The view is ruined by a rush of demons leaping over the broken edge of the roadway with knives, spears, swords, and claws extended. Crowley is pretty sure he’s pissed off at least half of that lot at one time or another. Talking them out of a fight probably won’t go over well.

“Not good.” Not-Jane backs away from them along with her younger self. Crowley yanks on their coats until they’re all standing next to Ba‘al. At least twenty demons land in the pit, trying for an evil cackle or just swearing when they trip over the rubble.

“Either of you any good with a sword?” Crowley asks, holding out Michael’s blade by the hilt. “Because I’m not.”

Not-Jane shakes her head, still clutching her side. “Hand me too much weight an’ I’d just be useless right now.”

The Doctor sighs and takes the sword in a left-handed grip while pulling a face. “Not a fan, but I can use it. Lucy did ask us not to kill any of her people outright if we could avoid it. Just thought it might be a good time for a reminder.”

“You’re holding Michael’s sword,” Crowley says. “As long as all you _want _is for that blade to discorporate a demon, that’s all you’ll get. You won’t make anyone permanently dead unless you really want them that way.”

The Doctor nods and lifts the blade into a guard position. “I can work with that. Not a fan of killing people, me. What about the rest of you?”

Ba‘al steps forward with a blackened halberd gripped in their hands. “I am armed, but Healers do not fight—” They pause and watch, eyebrows raised, as one of the approaching demons sprouts an arrow in their left eye socket. “Well. Usually they do not,” they say as the demon starts screeching.

Crowley lowers the bow he yanked forth from its hiding place in the ether. “What?” he asks, pulling a second arrow from the quiver now resting over his back and nocking it before raising his bow again. Comms are down; his ear-piece is silent, and he has no idea why. “I wanna fucking _live,_ Ba‘al!”

Ba‘al swings their halberd so its blade sings through the air in warning. “It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen that bow.”

“Fifth battle of the First War, before things got so bloody complicated. That was the last time I used it. Forgot it existed, actually.” Crowley makes a sympathetic noise when his next arrow hits a demon in the groin. He falls and rolls around on the ground, clutching both the arrow and his bollocks while shrieking. They also look to be shedding tree frogs. “Okay, so my aim’s a bit rusty and _where the hell is everyone else?_” he yells.

“Comms are down,” the Doctor says. “No signal, no idea why.”

Crowley nocks another arrow. “I knew that part already! Why aren’t they helping us anyway?”

“Thirty demons rose from the ground who would not recognize my Prince’s authority,” Ba‘al states, calmly swinging the halberd again and embedding the blade in the gut of a wraith-thin demon who ventured too close. They fall down, but don’t discorporate right away, the poor gurgling bastard. Personal experience; a halberd to the gut really sodding hurts.

Ba‘al yanks their halberd free of the dying demon. “Samael’s remaining allies would want to keep the others from assisting us.”

“Great.” The Doctor adjusts his position until Not-Jane is sheltered behind him. “Well, twenty against three. Those aren’t the worst odds I’ve ever faced.”

Not-Jane looks miffed and pulls her sonic device from her coat. “Four, you prat,” she tells her younger self, pointing the silver tool at the nearest demon as the fiery orange crystal lights up.

Crowley and Ba‘al cringe in tandem. Crowley’s next arrow goes wide and bounces off a section of broken pipes. “Bloody _hell_, Jane, that hurts!” He feels like he just took an air horn blast to his eardrums.

Not-Jane isn’t the slightest bit repentant. “At least my sonic’s pointed off that way instead of at you.”

“Vicious,” Ba‘al says in approval, though they’re still scowling about the sonic noise. “Just as a healer should be.”

_That’s my girl,_ Crowley thinks, and immediately feels weird about it. He hasn’t even known the Doctor for a full day yet.

How the fuck did this become his life?

Oh, well. At least Samael is exceptionally dead.

The Doctor swings Michael’s blade, severing the arm of the demon with a snapped-off arrow still embedded in his eye. “Oi, that one is stubborn!” Not-Jane comments when the demon screams out his rage but doesn’t fall down.

“Please actually bloody discorporate already!” The Doctor swings Michael’s sword again, sliding it against the broken polearm the demon is carrying. He twists the sword and then nails the stubborn demon in the chest with the tip of the blade. The demon discorporates with a soundless explosion of black ash. “That’s normal, right?”

Crowley nods and lets another arrow fly. This time, he doesn’t miss. Another swirl of black ashes are caught and lifted by the wind. “You get used to it.”


	27. Hunters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "How did you piss off Typhaon? Samael and most people who speak to you on a daily basis weren’t enough?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Holidays, loves. <3
> 
> (Cheer-read by @norcumii and @drougnor!)

Martha tries every single channel on the ear-piece before giving it up. The team in Soho didn’t just swap channels; they’re entirely offline. “Mickey!”

She turns around and looks to the nearest people in Torchwood fatigues. “Is _anyone_ getting signal right now?”

Lils and Padma both shake their heads. Marcus yanks his comm out of his ear. “I think they took the system down too early, ma’am.”

At first, Martha utterly blanks on what Marcus is talking about. Then she groans and covers her face with both hands. “Oh, God, those utter bleeding morons!” she shouts.

No mobiles. No comms. The land lines were already sliced, just in case the Racnoss were intelligent enough to take advantage of human communications.

All the signal relays for Central London are down. Somewhere, some sodding bonehead of a technician read the order and decided that the 05:00 invasion marker was the cutoff time instead of waiting for Martha or Mickey’s order, like they were bloody well supposed to. God help them, they’d just lost the ability to coordinate the rest of Central London’s evacuation.

They were insanely fortunate that the stupid sod in question was behind schedule. Those extra ten minutes of communication before the breakdown will probably end up saving lives.

Martha takes a calming breath and drops her hands. “I need a runner.”

“Me,” Lils volunteers at once. “I never knocked off with the running even after I wasn’t running races anymore.”

“Okay.” Martha draws in another breath. “You know where Mickey’s team was working. Get there, tell him what’s going on. Mickey’s closest to Bunhill Fields and the transport evac point. If anyone is still there, Mickey’s team can catch a lift to the Green Spa crossover. Then go west—take the northern routes—and join Magambo at Grosvenor to update her on the situation. Once you’re there, stick with her.”

“Got it.” Lils secures her rifle and takes off. That’s no light jog, but a sprint that will probably feel like a slog by the end of it.

Martha shakes her head. “For God’s sake, steal a bloody car! I didn’t mean for the running part to be literal!”

“We’re close enough to the western exit. Want me to go alert them?” Marcus offers after Lils laughs aloud and goes searching for something to steal.

“No. You and I are going to borrow a car of our own for a fast trip south to Newington. You’ll stay there while I head on to Potter’s Field Park. We need comms back online, and down there is the man to see it done.” Martha suspects Donna might be just as capable, but she doesn’t know if it the job would be done as quickly as the Doctor could manage it. She’s also glad that the Waterloo Bridge isn’t anywhere near the terrifying fire crossing the Thames.

“Padma, you and Will are staying here,” Martha orders. “You’re both in charge of securing Russel Square until everyone is off. Wait for the three teams we have outbound if you can, but the civilians are priority one. You lot best make sure you’re on that last transport going to Mayfair, or I will _not_ be happy.” She glares in the direction of Soho. The rumbling from that direction has only gotten louder since the clock struck five, which isn’t good. “Tell all the drivers to start cutting through Fitzrovia and Marleybone to get to the crossover point in Mayfair,” Martha adds, glad that Grosvenor Square is a decent distance from Soho.

“Yes, ma’am,” Padma agrees, frowning. Will nods; Martha knows he’ll make certain Padma is on a transport, not waiting here for the return of teams who might not be coming. Martha doesn’t want to leave anyone behind, but everyone who joined Torchwood knows the risks. If they can’t get back, Martha trusts them to survive in Central London as best they can until the Racnoss are dealt with.

The Racnoss _have_ to be dealt with. Those blasted spiders are not keeping her city.

* * * *

Jack opens his eyes and knows at once that he’s not alive again. Not yet, anyway. He sits up in a void of unceasing blackness, taking a look around. He’s never had this kind of opportunity before. Not that there’s much to see—check that.

He grins at the pale-skinned, humanoid figure standing a few meters away. They have sleek black hair and black eyes, but in a human way, not the creepy soulless way a lot of demons seemed to favor. Their features are soft and smooth, their hands wide and elegant as they curl around a scythe. Black wings rise from their back, but it’s the starlit sky, not powdered coal black. If the scythe wasn’t big enough hint, then the black robes they’re wearing definitely drive home the point.

“Oh. Hi there, Death. Or do you prefer Azrael?” Jack asks. “Sorry about all of the dying and not sticking around long enough to stay that way.”

“AZRAEL IS FINE,” Death says, which, way to go dramatic on the voice. “I AM USED TO YOUR FREQUENT, BRIEF VISITS.”

“Okay. Wait, is this a long-term stay? Because my husband will resurrect me just to murder me if it is.”

The corner of Azrael’s mouth turns up in a slight smile. “NO. YOU WILL RETURN IN A MOMENT. I ASK THAT YOU PASS ON A MESSAGE FOR ME.”

“I can do that. I hope. I mean, sometimes I remember these little stopovers, and sometimes I don’t,” Jack admits.

“THAT WILL NOT MATTER. THIS TIME, YOU WILL REMEMBER.”

“Okay. Let’s have that message then, huh? I need to get back and possibly pry a knife out of my chest,” Jack says. “I always hate that part.”

“TELL THEM TO GET OUT OF THE PIT, CAPTAIN HARKNESS. TELL THEM TO DO IT NOW.

“THE HUNTERS ARE COMING.”

Jack wakes up with a sharp gasp and absolutely no time to adjust to being alive again. He grabs the nearest weapon—the same dagger that killed him—and leaps forward, burying it in the back of the neck of a rank-smelling demon trying to kill Aziraphale. Suddenly the only thing Jack is trying to stab is a bunch of grey flakes of ash.

“Okay. Guess that’s how demons discorporate, then.” Jack likes Crowley’s bit with the glowing embers better, except for the part where Crowley was (temporarily) dead.

Aziraphale wipes his forehead with his coat sleeve and nods at him. “Thank you. Welcome back, I suppose. Samael is dead, by the way.”

“Oh, that’s great news! As for me being back—oh, fuck it, the Doc’s just gonna have to cope.” Jack draws his revolver, changes out the non-lethal stunners for bullets, and fires. The demon with a bullet in his heart doesn’t discorporate. “Are you kidding me?”

“They’re more resilient than your standard human,” Aziraphale reminds him.

“Right.” Jack fires twice more until the demon gives up and discorporates in a drift of what looks like burnt newsprint. “Don’t tell the Doctor I did that. I dunno about her current self, but the younger ones are really cranky about guns.”

“I won’t say a word,” Aziraphale promises, parrying a blow from another demon, female-presenting and wielding a fucking claymore that’s twice her size.

Jack takes out another of the attacking demons, scowling when that empties the revolver. He didn’t exactly bring a lot of bullets to this party. “Hey, Martha—” he tries, and then realizes the ear-piece is silent.

“Shit! When did that happen?” Jack asks. He literally pistol-whips the next demon to come near him, cracking them in the temple with the butt of his revolver. That demon doesn’t discorporate, either, but at least they stay on the ground. Why aren’t they out of demons yet? How long was he dead?

“They fight well, four of the ones who rejoined Lucy betrayed her _again_, and about two minutes,” Saraquel answers him, kicking a demon in the knee. The demon lets out a pathetic whine, but still leaps forward to try to claw Saraquel in the face.

“Didn’t realize I was saying that out loud. I kind of have a message from Azrael.”

Saraquel holds the demon back with one hand pressed over the demon’s face while slowly turning his head to stare at Jack. “Oh. Well. Great. Right, then. What’s the message?”

“Uh—_tell them to get out of the pit. Tell them to do it now. The hunters are coming_,” Jack recites. “No idea what that means. What pit?”

“Hunters,” Saraquel repeats, and then his eyes go shock-wide. “OH, FUCK, WE’RE FUCKED—” he starts shouting, and then vanishes in a burst of light.

Jack has no idea what’s going on, aside from having to punch Saraquel’s abandoned demon in the throat so they’ll stop trying to bite him. Then Saraquel’s shouting is coming from the intersection of Greek Street and Old Compton. “GET OUT OF THE PIT! THE HUNTERS ARE COMING!”

There’s a brief moment of silence, followed by Crowley’s more distant voice yelling, “FUCKING SON OF A GREASE-WHEELED WAGONMASTER’S SHIT! WE FORGOT ABOUT THE FUCKING HUNTERS!”

“That was creative.” Jack makes a note of that one for later. “What the hell are hunters?” he asks Gabriel, who has frozen in place, horrified. “Okay, that’s a great way to tell me that they’re not good, but details would be nice!”

“To be fair, it’s been a _very_ long time since a Hunter has been a concern,” Michael starts to explain—and then cries out when a demon’s sword rips up his back.

“Michael!” Gabriel leaps across the chasm in the street, reaching the other Celestial and catching Michael as he drops to his knees.

Jack reloads the revolver and kills the demon that injured Michael. Sneaky bastard dropped back into the chasm and crawled up the other side to pull that off. Jack hopes they enjoy themselves in Hell. “Someone please tell me what hunters are, okay? If comms come back online, everyone else needs to know!”

“They’re trouble.” Jack didn’t even realize Israfil was in the fight again until he swings his staff and clocks Aziraphale’s claymore-swinging demon in the skull. Aziraphale wastes no time, discorporating her with his sword. “The scouts are literally what their name implies. The Hunters are those who sniff out the Racnoss’s meals in advance, leaving trails for the others to follow. Sort of like ants, I think.”

“Nightmare ants, maybe!” Jack retorts. “Where were you?”

Israfil tilts his head down at the ground. Jack looks just long enough to see visible fang marks through the demon’s tattered trousers before they discorporate in a sudden heavy _whump_ of ash. “Oh. Good job,” he says, but Israfil is already crossing the jagged hole in the road to check on Michael.

“They’re coming out of the pit,” Lucy observes, her sword removing another demon’s head from their shoulders. At least a good old-fashioned beheading leads to instantaneous discorporation.

Jack glances over his shoulder to find out what she means. Where Samael had been is a giant, gaping hole in the center of the intersection. Saraquel is already in the air, his gold wings working hard to keep him afloat that close to the ground. Ba‘al comes out of the pit, carrying Jack’s first Doctor with both arms. Their wings are a shining steel grey that fades into coal black. The moment there is solid asphalt beneath their feet, Ba‘al drops the Doctor. He lands gracefully, even with a sword in his hand.

Oh. Well, that explains why Michael was fighting without a sword.

Crowley appears next, his hair and bronzed-black wings too distinctive not to notice. He’s cradling the eldest version of the Doctor in his arms. Jack takes one look at her pale skin and knows something is definitely not right.

“There are a _lot_ of angry demons in that pit trying to climb out,” Saraquel calls.

“Eh, fuck ’em,” Crowley responds. “We already discorporated the ones who still had wings. The others can stay right where they are.”

“Michael—no. You can’t!” Gabriel yells.

Jack whirls back around, wondering what _else_ is going wrong, and realizes that Michael looks even worse than the Doctor. “Michael?”

Israfil’s eyes are shining with a faint, ethereal blue as he studies Michael’s body. “That damned demonic sword hit an artery in his heart, Gabriel. Michael, you’ve already lost too much blood for fixing that damage to do any good.”

“You have to do _something_!” Gabriel insists. “He’ll die!”

“Oh, nonsense!” Michael retorts. “It’s just a discorporation!” That doesn’t seem to make Gabriel feel any better.

“I’m glad it’s merely that, truly,” Aziraphale says, “but we’ll be without your assistance until a new body can be formed.”

Michael grimaces, but nods. “Thank you for being practical, Aziraphale. Gabriel, please calm yourself. I haven’t died in at least seven thousand years, and that is a Heavenly record for an angel with a corporation!”

“I _am_ calm!” Gabriel declares, glaring at Michael. Jack’s pretty sure none of them believe him.

Jack gets nudged to one side as the younger Doctor jogs over to join them. His face is clean, but he’s still shedding dirt and dust. “I’m thinking you might need this back before you leave,” the Doctor says, handing over the blue-tinged sword when Michael reaches for it.

“Yes. Thank you,” Michael whispers, and promptly disappears in a brief shower of sparks and glowing embers. The sword disappears with him.

Huh. Crowley isn’t the only one who pulls the glowing embers bit when discorporating. Jack wonders if it varies by type of Celestial.

Gabriel lets out a choked sound and lowers his head. Israfil bends down long enough to rest his hand on Gabriel’s shoulder. “Michael will be fine, but we _have_ to go. Right now, Gabriel.”

“Right. Yes.” Gabriel picks up his discarded sword, which bursts into flame again at his touch. Lucy’s reclaimed demons finished off the last two stupid ones while they were worrying over Michael. “Is there a plan?”

“Of course there’s a plan,” Crowley snarled, stalking over with the eldest Doctor still in his arms. “Because someone is a bloody liar!”

“Got it right from the source,” the Doctor mutters, offering up a pained grin when Crowley glares at her.

“Israfil.” Crowley takes a moment to calm down, which reverts his eyes from full reptilian gold to the more human-like version with visible sclera. Jack wonders when he lost the sunglasses. “I need you to take her to the house in Sheffield. Her insides need to be put back together before this becomes a bloody regeneration instead of an inconvenience.”

“Oh, so we’re still lying about that sort of thing in two thousand years,” the younger Doctor comments. His counterpart rolls her eyes. “Good to know.”

“I’ll heal better in the TARDIS,” the eldest Doctor claims after Crowley transfers her to Israfil’s arms. Given how many times she winced during the transition, Jack knows she’s in bad shape. “It was just a bloody fall!”

“No, it was a psychic burn _followed_ by a bloody fall!” Crowley snaps. “And I’m not stupid. If I put you on your gossiping ship, you won’t heal up because you’ll be too busy sodding doing things!”

The Doctor holds up one finger and then lowers it, visibly sulking at being caught out. “Okay, so maybe I’d be doing exactly that.”

“You can come back after Israfil clears you…” Crowley trails off, holding completely still. Gabriel starts to open his mouth, but Crowley swiftly holds up his hand, hushing the other Celestial without saying a word. “Israfil,” Crowley murmurs.

“Yeah.” Israfil’s voice is low and quiet. “I think I’ve got it, but it’s been a while, Brother.”

Saraquel waits out a full minute’s count. “Is it the Hunters?” This time Jack can really hear the capitalization in the word, and hopes these Hunters aren’t worse than a standard Racnoss. He already has zero experience with a violent, planet-eating species that’s supposed to be extinct.

“Wait.” Crowley slowly walks to the edge of the pit in the intersection where Samael had performed his demon-in-the-box routine. “Oh, no. Ohshitohshitohshit—”

Crowley whirls around and definitely teleports, because the next thing Jack knows, Crowley has grabbed hold of Jack’s hands, his wings already extended. “EVERYONE IN THE AIR!”

Saraquel doesn’t waste time, grabbing the younger Doctor while Israfil teleports himself and the older Doctor to safety. “Crowley?”

“IT’S BLOODY TYPHAON, AND THE HUNTERS ARE WITH HIM!” Crowley yanks Jack into the air with a strength Jack wouldn’t have thought the man capable of.

The other Celestials, Lucy, Ba‘al, and Lucy’s six remaining allied demons don’t stick around to ask further questions. They take flight with an ease that Jack kind of envies; that size and weight shouldn’t be so easy to lift.

Jack still has no idea what the other demons’ names are, but all of them have a serious problem with hygiene. The four demons with their own unkempt wings all share the same color, a deep matte black that refuses to reflect light. Gabriel is carrying one of Lucy’s flightless allies with one hand, looking very unhappy about it. Ba‘al has the other demon, who looks terrified. Their wings aren’t coal black, but steel grey with black ends; it looks like fire tried to crawl up Ba‘al’s feathers and left char behind.

Lucy’s wings are the most impressive aside from Aziraphale’s albino peacock look. She’s almost hovering in place, her flight made easy by the strength of six extended wings. They’re scarlet-topped gold, but the feathers of the largest pair are edged in black. The charred color is worse on the second pair; her third pair of wings are charcoal black, just like the lesser demons.

Jack also notes that everyone’s weapons have conveniently vanished. He’s got a similar trick, but he suspects theirs is better.

“What’s happening?” Aziraphale demands to know, holding their distance from the ground easily with four wings extended. “What are—oh. Oh, dear.”

Crowley doesn’t turn himself and Jack around to face the pit again until they’re hovering just above the rooflines for the theatre and a building across the way, four storeys up from ground level. “Those are Hunters. Yes, they can climb. And jump. I’d fly higher if I were you, Maghunta.” There is a female-sounding snort from behind them, but it’s followed by flapping feathers.

Jack doesn’t get a clear glimpse of the Hunters until much later. It’s still dark down there, and the Hunters are too fast, making high-pitched noises as they find the twelve flightless demons trapped in the pit—demons who just discovered that the Racnoss are totally fine with eating their allies.

He swallows hard as the ripping and tearing starts, accompanied by very human-like screaming. He’d equate it to sharks in a feeding frenzy, but sharks don’t deserve that kind of PR. “Shit.”

As if that’s not bad enough, the ground starts to rumble. A moment later, the cafe and walkway that stand opposite the old theatre collapses into the expanding pit. The entire southern end on the west side of Greek street quickly follows, vanishing into blackness. The top of the rubble doesn’t even make it to street level.

Jack is so fucking glad they had all the civilians out of here before Samael turned up, because this—he’s old, but he has limits. Standing by helplessly as people die is definitely one of them. Buildings are easy to replace. People, not so much.

The roar of collapsing buildings is so loud that it quickly becomes the only thing Jack can hear. Not even his own heart, pounding in his ears, is audible over that. Dust plumes start to rise into the air like thick drifts of smoke.

Jack picks up a hint of something psychic, not from Crowley, before the wind picks up and starts to push the dust south, away from them. He’ll find that particular Celestial and thank them later. Just because he can’t die doesn’t mean he wants to wait several decades for his lungs to heal up from breathing the toxic shit mixed in with that dust.

“Uh,” Jack starts to say, but that’s kind of pointless right now. He thinks it instead: _Crowley, look west!_

_What—no!_ Crowley’s grip on Jack’s hands tightens until bones are scraping together. The block of buildings lining the south side of Old Compton are crumbling and dropping whole parts of themselves as they collapse into the pit.

_You miserable fucking bastard, Typhaon! I fucking well live there, you utter tit!_

Not anymore, Jack thinks in sharp sympathy. It isn’t just the properties along the street, but the entire block being annihilated. The destruction is stunning to witness, horrible in its geometric precision.

Precision. Fuck.

Jack thought it was just instability caused by the Racnoss and their dead allies tunneling up through to London, but this isn’t being caused by old tunnels collapsing beneath Soho. It’s not even a badly timed earthquake.

He watches as jagged cracks cross Greek Street, reaching for the buildings on that side of the road with greedy fingers. The noise Aziraphale makes when the facing of the bookshop suddenly collapses into unfathomable darkness is untranslatable, high-pitched rage, more psychic impression than sound.

It’s deliberate. All of it. The dust might give the Racnoss cover—Jack can’t see them at all anymore—but this isn’t about them at all.

_It’s revenge_, Crowley says.

_How did you piss off Typhaon?_ Jack asks. _Samael and most people who speak to you on a daily basis weren’t enough?_

Crowley ignores the jibe. _He used to be an archangel named Sandalphon. He wanted Armageddon to happen. Yes, the literal biblical Armageddon,_ Crowley explains, then physically winces as the entire block of the east side of Greek Street is destroyed. _Sandalphon didn’t get what he wanted because Aziraphale and I helped stop it. Then he didn’t get what he wanted because my brother and I sort of helped air out the truth of it all—that Armageddon was never supposed to happen. If you lot destroy yourselves, it’ll be on human terms, not ours. Sandalphon left Heaven in a snit and promptly Fell to become Typhaon_.

Jack would really like to be able to say he’s surprised, but he isn’t. He’s met too many people with the same mindset over the centuries. _So, Typhaon_ is _going to destroy Central London just because he didn’t get to kill…demons? Humans?_

_Don’t think he much cared who it was as long as he got to kill them. Typhaon probably thinks he’s being funny by going with the giant Greek serpent bit, too. _The narrow streets that ran behind the bookshop’s block are starting to crack apart. _Soho’s just the start. He’ll try to take down all of it._

Jack isn’t a high-ranking psychic, but he’s easily picking up on Crowley’s intense grief and anger, along with a seething need for vengeance on Aziraphale’s behalf. That bookshop wasn’t just a shop, not to Crowley and Aziraphale. The idea is as clear in Jack’s head as if it’d been shoe-horned into place: _Home_. For centuries, that used bookshop was home.

_I’m sorry,_ Jack says, knowing it isn’t enough.

Crowley glances down at him, his gaze sharp, jaw clenched. _Thank you. Things are about to go to shit here. After I speak with the others, you and the Doctor need to go to the evacuation points_.

_I can still help,_ Jack protests. _It’s not like I can die, Crowley._

_It’s not about that._ Crowley swings them around, taking away Jack’s view of the lost bookshop and the wreckage of Old Compton…which is now spreading eastward, taking out the street and all the buildings on both sides. Turning away doesn’t stop Jack’s ears from being filled with the groaning, twisting horror unfolding below them.

Seeing Aziraphale is almost worse than watching part of London collapse. The Celestial is weeping in silence, his lips pressed into a grim, desolate line. Aziraphale’s grip on his sword is white-knuckled, the blade burning with a near-white flame.

_Aziraphale,_ Crowley murmurs.

_I know, Crowley._ Aziraphale swallows. _It’s…it’s only a shop. I’ll be fine._

Crowley’s fingers convulsively clench, grinding bones together in Jack’s hands again. It hurts, but not enough to break anything. _We’ll talk about it later, angel_.

_Typhaon has to be making room for the Racnoss_, Saraquel says. _The tunnel isn’t big enough, not if there are more of them than the facility in New Zealand suggested._

_The scent of the Hunters is gone, isn’t it?_ Gabriel doesn’t sound as if he expects to hear anything different.

_Hurray for mortar dust_, Crowley responds in frustration. _Perfect camouflage if you want to spread out without being noticed. We have to find the Hunters before they find the evacuation points._

_Camouflage is just a bonus. This isn’t about hiding the Hunters. It’s about destroying Central London. It’s revenge_, the Doctor realizes, his eyes widening. _This is stupid, useless revenge_.

_Revenge that will grant the Racnoss access to Greater London, especially if Typhaon’s current corporation is immune to hellfire._ Gabriel lifts his chin. _We must stop him._

_I already know how to stop him. I just don’t know how to bloody well get _rid _of him_. Crowley’s arms jerk, a shrug or an angry huff that’s directed at Gabriel. _I’ll do it without harming the idiot, Gabriel. I can’t, anyway. Mum told me not to._

_She asked you not to perform one of your roles?_ Gabriel repeats, baffled. _Why?_

_Who the fuck knows,_ Crowley replies._ Mysterious ways and all that shit. _

_Crowley. _One of the female-appearing demons, with lank white hair that has living spiders nesting in it, shifts her wings until she is hovering in front of the other three winged demons. _I would speak._

_What is it, Maghunta?_ Crowley asks, sounding curious. _Because if it’s about me owing you money, you still haven’t gotten the currency value calculated right._

The demon smiles without humor. _No. Not that, though I will be correcting that error very soon. Those of us who thought Samael to be a Lord of Hell, but then realized the truth of his plots, have already pledged our loyalty to our Prince twice over. I will remain in Central London after all the humans depart, and they will be here with me. The Hunters are intelligent. If we reduce their number, the other Racnoss will have a more difficult time at finding hidden ways to cross the hellfire that encircles this place._

_You sure?_ Crowley asks. There’s no hesitation in accepting the offer, just concern about the demons’ certainty. _You’re going to be stuck in Central London with a _lot_ of Racnoss._

_If it becomes too dangerous, I am immune to hellfire,_ Maghunta states in a dry tone. _The quarantine line will not stop us from departing._ She pauses. _It will not stop _most_ of us from departing, but the others have accepted that discorporation may be necessary to avoid the Racnoss_.

_Okay, yeah, good point. Uh—thanks._

Maghunta’s smile still looks flat and emotionless, like it’s a learned expression. _We remember the Racnoss, archangel. It will be our pleasure to hunt them._

_All right, great. Have at it, guys,_ Crowley says. Maghunta inclines her head in a bow before gesturing. The other flighted demons collect the ones held by Ba‘al and Gabriel. Then they depart in a near-silent whistle of wind through feathers, though one of the flightless demons ruins it by cackling. Jack decides right then that they’re all nuts. Useful and probably evil, but nuts.

_Okay, listen,_ Crowley continues after the demons are gone. _I’m taking Jack and the Doctor here to the crossover point in Mayfair, because that’s the one closest to the sodding giant idiot trying to break London, and it’s also because you _can’t fly_! _Crowley adds, scowling at the Doctor._ You won’t be much help against the Hunters if Typhaon takes out the ground beneath your feet._

_Right. It’s a good point and I’ll admit to it, but I still don’t like it,_ the Doctor grumbles.

Geeze, they’re all as tetchy as Crowley_._ Jack thinks, and has to bite back a huge grin that has really inappropriate timing.

Saraquel takes the concession as a cue and flies over to them. Jack unashamedly clings to Crowley’s left arm with both hands as Crowley reaches out to grasp hold of the Doctor. _I’m glad you’re not that heavy,_ Crowley mutters.

The Doctor doesn’t look impressed. _Just don’t bloody well drop me!_

_The rest of us are going hunting for Hunters, I suppose. _Aziraphale seems deeply unhappy._ What do Hunters even look like?_

Saraquel shrugs. _They look like giant centaurs with spider bodies instead of horses, they’re usually male, they’re all a bit smaller than the main army, and they’re most often brown and black in color._

_They have a number of secondary eyes,_ Ba‘al adds. _Their vision is exemplary._

Lucy smirks. _And some of them are chameleons who blend in with the scenery._

_Right, yeah. Forgot that part. Maybe we’ll luck out and not get Hunter chameleons,_ Crowley says, and then teleports before anyone can comment. They’re in the clear, for the moment, hovering near a crowd of London evacuees in Mayfair. Crowley lowers Jack and the Doctor onto the street next to Grosvenor Square.

“My ears bloody hurt,” Crowley grumbles. “And I can still hear Typhaon being a bastard.”

“Same here.” The Doctor pulls out his sonic screwdriver and adjusts the settings before listening to it. “Typhaon is still heading east. If I adjust some of the sensors on the TARDIS, I can track him, but it sounds more like the Hunters are a priority.”

“They are.” Crowley drops down to the street, his wings vanishing as he stares at the mass of people waiting to walk through the TARDIS’s expanded doorway. “We’re running out of time. They have to move faster.”

“I’ll take care of that,” Jack volunteers. “If chasing rogue aliens teaches you anything, you figure out how to hurry people along without panicking them.”

“They _should_ be bloody panicked, Jack.” Crowley grabs the Doctor’s arm. “You’ll never get through that crowd. Time for a shortcut.” The second teleportation is only a flash of light, no hint of feathers included.

Jack takes a deep breath and checks his watch. He’s used to how much can go wrong in a brief span of time, but it’s still hard to believe that it’s only 05:20. “Okay. Time to ruin everyone’s day.”

* * * *

The Doctor reaches out on instinct, catching Crowley before he can drop to the floor of his eldest self’s TARDIS. “All right there?”

Crowley stares blankly at the control console for a moment. “Sure. Dizzy is a sign of being fine, right? Hi, Wolf Girl.”

“Hi, Zaherael,” Rose responds. The Doctor looks up and feels his jaw fall open. Rose still looks like Rose, but her eyes are shining with brilliant gold energy from the Time Vortex.

“Not Zaherael,” Crowley protests, letting the Doctor pull him back to his feet. “It’s Crowley, wench!”

“Yes, but Zaherael is the name _I_ last used for you.” The Bad Wolf smirks at him. “Not her. Except it was. Except it really wasn’t.”

“Start doing things in order, then,” Crowley suggests.

“Why? Doing things out of order is much more fun,” Rose counters, and then glares at the TARDIS console. “Oi, watch it, you! We might be linked up right now so I can fly your stubborn self, but I am _not_ your bloody mouthpiece!”

“Thought that sounded more like her. Rose, just…” The Doctor gestures at his eyes. “_How?_”

The Bad Wolf tilts her head. “She didn’t give you a good enough summary, did she?”

“Apparently not.” The Doctor reaches out and helps Crowley keep his balance when he starts to tilt to the side. “And you’re not doing so well, either.”

Crowley digs the heels of his palms into his eyes. “I am so. Fucking. Exhausted! Also, I have to go turn bedrock into something else, which I doubt anyone in London will _ever_ thank me for.” Before the Doctor can protest, Crowley’s gone again.

“Dammit,” the Doctor mutters. “I do not have a good feeling about that.”

“He’ll be fine.” That is definitely Rose, not the Bad Wolf. The Doctor isn’t certain how he knows the difference, because it wasn’t from the absence of time energy. He has the feeling the Bad Wolf can hide that facet if she wants to. “Come take over the controls for me, yeah?”

“I can do that…probably,” the Doctor amends. This version of his girl is vastly different from the TARDIS that Donna is currently piloting.

Then the TARDIS slips the instructions for the new works into his head, so that’s one problem solved. “Maybe we can figure out why the comms we were using went down, too,”

“Their comms are down?” Rose reaches out and unerringly finds the TARDIS’s communications setup. “Donna, John, did either of you know that comms were down?”

“I do _now_,” Donna says before the Doctor’s other self can speak. “I thought the lot of them were just being really quiet for some reason, or the TARDIS had decided I didn’t need any bloody distractions. Not like it’s the first time she’s pulled that one.”

“No, it isn’t, but…” the Doctor frowns as he listens to his other self trail off. “It isn’t just the mobile signal our friends were using. It’s _every_ signal. All of Central London is offline.”

The Doctor glances up at the ceiling in frustration. “They weren’t supposed to do that yet! Not until the order was given!”

“No. No, they weren’t,” his counterpart agrees. “However, we’ve got three ships right here, which just happen to be arranged in a nice triangular fashion…”

“We just became the comm signal, gotcha.” Donna sounds like she’s laughing as she works.

“We just need two signals. One for everyone to listen in on, and one just for our people, I’d say,” Rose suggests.

“I’d try for a private signal that can jump between comms, but I don’t think we have time to set it up.” The Doctor quickly updates the others on the situation outside.

“Hunters.” His counterpart hums under his breath. The Doctor suspects that he’s tapping his fingers on the console. His next face has that sort of twitch to him. “Oh. OH! I’d forgotten—my head is so bloody stupid!”

“Oi, that’s _our_ head, so you be nice to it,” the Doctor retorts. “You’re not the only one who’d forgotten the Hunters existed, but we’ve never had to deal with them, either!”

“Right, yeah. That one really was before our time,” his counterpart admits. “How many of them are there?”

“No idea. The Celestial lot are dealing with them, at least for the moment.” The Doctor removes the ear-piece from his right ear and holds it up for the TARDIS to scan. “Our girl’s got the scent.”

“Yeah, that just came in over here,” Donna says. “I’m glad those things have more than one channel, or one line is all we’d get.”

“What happened to bloody Bluetooth, anyway?” his counterpart asks. “They should still be around, right?”

“They are, from what I saw. This particular headset is a Torchwood special, John,” Rose says. “Bit similar to one my old Torchwood lot put together. It was around about the same decade, too.”

“The Bluetooth for my mobile is a 5.1,” Donna adds. “They just updated them last year, so they’re definitely still in the game.”

“Neat. They do fun things here in a few years,” his counterpart mumbles, almost to himself. The Doctor listens in that direction of Time and raises both eyebrows. Fun? Maybe. Definitely interesting, though. “That’s it, got it, we have signal in Central London again! Theoretically, anyway. Test that headset you’ve got over there, see if anyone’s talking. I really should’ve waited until after we were done here before getting curious and taking mine apart, but to be fair, I got bored.”

“I get really excitable next go-round, don’t I?” the Doctor asks Rose, who grins at the question. Then he puts the ear-piece back on. “Donna?”

“Loud and clear, Other-Sunshine,” Donna chirps back. “Oi you lot out there! We went and did you a favor!”

Martha Jones is the first to chime in. “Oh, thank _God_. Newington is a nightmare. I’ve been trying to get to the nearest source of a fix for that exact problem, and instead I’ve been stuck in traffic just south of the Thames!”

“Thank you for making it so much easier to coordinate a search for these Hunters,” Aziraphale says. The Doctor still has no idea what to make of that one. Compared to the other Celestials, Aziraphale is so entirely British stiff upper lip gentry that he nearly reads like a different species.

“Yes, definitely, thank you.” Lucy lets out a grunt. “And that’s one less Hunter to deal with. You’re all quite welcome.”

“You’re all right?” Saraquel asks her.

“Absolutely. As if a mere Hunter is ever going to touch me,” Lucy all but snarls back.

“Oh, there’s the piss and vinegar we all know and love,” Crowley drawls. “Maybe save it for the other Hunters, though.”

“Crowley, I know there is interference in the air, but can you tell us how many Hunters emerged from the pit?” Gabriel asks. When the silence stretches on too long, he tries again. “Crowley?”

“I’m bloody trying, all right? Please develop some chill!”

Gabriel sounds confounded. “What on Earth does that mean?”

“Calm your tits,” Donna supplies. “It means have some bleedin’ patience.”

“Oh. Why not just request patience in the first place?” Gabriel asks in angry bafflement.

“Calm your tits, Gabriel,” Ba‘al states in their smooth, precise way, which elicits a peal of shocked laughter from Saraquel.

“Oi, you lot,” Mickey speaks up. “Someone hold their bloody horses for a bit so the rest of us can find out what Hunters are, why are we killing them, and how do I make them dead?”

“They’re more Racnoss, Mickey,” Aziraphale responds promptly. “They’re brown instead of red, but some have the ability to camouflage themselves like a chameleon.”

Mickey snorts. “Whose stupid fucking idea was it to give the Racnoss the ability to act like chameleons?”

“You’d have to ask Mum,” Crowley replies. “Dare you to ask in exactly that fashion, by the way.”

“HiguysIfoundaHunter,” Jack gasps into the comm. “LeadingitawayfromGrosvenor. Youassholesforgottomentionthatthesethingsarereallyfast!”

Crowley sounds bemused. “That is _really_ not my fault. What street are you on?”

“SouthonSouthAudley!” Jack responds. “IjustpassedtheEmbassy!”

“That one is mine,” Ba‘al announces. “Crowley, I am flying west over an area that looks very Chinese.”

“That’s Chinatown. You’re almost out of Soho,” Crowley says. “Keep flying southwest, look for that big green spot up ahead. Jack, can you make it to Green Park?”

“Iamnotdyingforasecondtimetoday!”

“Just _run_, Jack,” Martha encourages him. “That end of the A4 is right near the hellfire boundary, so it shouldn’t have traffic on it!”

“Ohgreat!” Jack shouts. “IcanbeeatenbyaHunterorhitbyalorry!”

“I’d personally go with the lorry,” Crowley suggests. “You’ll wake up from that one.”

“Crowley, that is _not helping_!” Donna retorts.

“S’better than being eaten, I thought. Unless you’re one of those types who are into vore.”

“Er…” Aziraphale hesitates. “I really don’t want to ask this, but what is _vore_?”

Donna, Crowley, Mickey, Rose, the Doctor’s counterpart, and Lucy all say it at once: “You really don’t want to know,” quickly followed by Lucy muttering, “I cannot believe I just had to say that.”

“Hate to put another damper on things, but…uhm…” the Doctor’s counterpart makes an odd noise that causes Rose to tense up. Bad news, then. “The rest of the Racnoss are almost here.”

“Ba‘al.” Crowley sounds just as tense as Rose looks. “Forget the fucking Hunter. Snag Jack and get the Heaven away from there.”

“I can still kill it,” Ba‘al growls.

“We’re out of time!” Crowley snaps. “There are at least thirty fucking Hunters out there, the rest of the Racnoss are on their way, and Central London isn’t empty yet! Also, Soho is kind of falling into a cavern and I need to do something about that, but right now, worried more about the people. It’s time to bloody cheat.”

“Oh, didn’t I return at exactly the wrong time,” Israfil comments in a mild voice. “I turn my back for just ten minutes and everything goes off the rails.”

“Where’s Not-Jane?” Crowley asks.

“Sleeping it off, and that was a bloody _war_ to make certain it happened,” Israfil replies. “How are we cheating, Brother?”

“Oi, wait, someone tell me what happened to…well, _me_!” the Doctor’s counterpart insists.

“Bad fall, internal organ damage,” Israfil answers. “It’s healed up, but your lot’s spleens are seriously tetchy. Trust me, she’ll be glad for that nap. Now, then: cheating! Let’s move this along, I’d like to get out of the way of the sodding spidery buffet line!”

“I have Jack,” Ba‘al announces. “Though a Racnoss Hunter is now the proud owner of his large coat.”

“They don’t seem to like it very much,” Jack adds. “Some people have no fashion sense.”

“Says the walking anachronism,” Crowley observes, and then clicks his tongue. “Cheating! Here’s the cheating. Israfil and Lucy, you’re going to the ship Donna is piloting. Aziraphale and Ba‘al, I want you at the ship Rose is taking care of. Gabriel and Saraquel, you’re taking the ship south of the Thames, and you’re not allowed to comment on that Time Lord’s face. We’re literally going to miracle these people across the gap.”

“Crowley!” Gabriel sounds outraged. “We can’t _do_ that!”

“This is my planet, my dominion, my home, and these people are _my_ responsibility!” Crowley shouts. The Doctor grabs the comm and pulls it away from his ear before he gets deafened by an angry Celestial parent. “Yes, we fucking well are doing exactly that, and you can stuff that up your backside to join the stick you’ve had crammed in there for the last ten thousand years! We have the means to save these people, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do. No one is going to die in Central London today!”

“Now that’s the sort of thing I like to hear,” Mickey says. “The last transports are moving from the north position now, and will be in TARDIS range in just a few minutes. How about Newington?”

“You’re all sodding _mental_,” a man the Doctor doesn’t recognize by voice answers. “But same—the last transports going to Potters Field are already on the move!”

“Good job, Marcus,” Martha says. “Knew you had it in you. Magambo, are you back on-comm?”

“Right here,” Magambo replies. “The last transports for the western crossover are almost to Grosvenor Square. We’re prepping to unload at speed. If we’re about to be teleported across the gap via alien technology, then I appreciate receiving the warning.”

“Extra-dimensional, Colonel,” Aziraphale corrects her. “Though I doubt it really much matters at this point.”

“Right, yeah. You lot go to where I just told you, and _get these people out of here._ Please.” Crowley’s voice falters. “Please. I’m asking you.”

“Oh—oh, _for Heaven’s sake_, Crowley!” Gabriel says in exasperation. The Doctor has no idea what that’s about, but given the Celestial’s reaction, there’s something cultural attached to that wording.

“Right, then,” Saraquel replies. “There would be both of my brothers showing off the temper She gave them. We’ll make it happen, Crowley.”

Gabriel sighs. “Saraquel, I’ll meet you at the Potters Field Garden location in just a moment.”

“I’ve just encountered Israfil in front of the crowd waiting at the northern crossover,” Lucy says.

“It’s a big crowd.” The Doctor hears someone, most likely Israfil, crack his knuckles. “I do like a challenge.”

“The one who shifts the most beings before we escape this place wins?” Lucy offers.

“No way,” Israfil retorts. “I learned not to gamble with you long before you went and started a bloody war, Lucy.”

“I’m at the western crossing in Grosvenor Square,” Aziraphale informs them. “Ba‘al and Jack have just arrived to assist. Crowley, dear, what is it you’re going to be doing?”

“Did you lot know that London’s bedrock is made up of red sandstone, chalky limestone, and mudstone?” Crowley asks.

“Iron oxide, quartz, feldspar, iron oxide, carbon dioxide, and calcium carbonate,” the Doctor recites automatically. Then his eyes widen as a grin spreads across his face. “Oh. Oh!”

“That is _brilliant._” The Doctor’s counterpart sounds gleeful. “I mean that is just…that’s bloody clever, is what it is.”

“I had extra time on my hands yesterday to think about it,” Crowley says in the Doctor’s smug tone. Some things really shouldn’t be allowed to be genetic.

“Silicon carbide.” The Doctor smiles at Rose, who bounces in place and grins back. She definitely knows what that is.

“Quartz and feldspar provide the silicates, the carbonite and the CO2 supply the carbon, and the iron oxide acts as a catalyst.” Donna is _definitely_ cackling. No wonder the Doctor claimed her as a friend. “You’re really going to turn everything beneath Central London into one of the hardest substances on the planet, aren’t you?”

“That will keep Typhaon from destroying the rest of the city,” Israfil says in approval. “Granted, then Central London will be sitting on a great deal of silicon carbide.”

“The humans’ll figure out something amazing or terrible to do with it all,” Crowley replies. “I’ll be on top of Centre Point on New Oxford Street. The Racnoss might be good at climbing, but thirty-three stories will bloody well slow them down.”

* * * *

Crowley closes his eyes, letting the wind buffet him as he stands atop the Centre Point tower. It pulls at his hair, yanks on his jacket, and whips past his denim-clad trouser legs as if intent on stripping him bare. The ear-piece is turned off and shoved into his inner jacket pocket. Definitely can’t afford distractions, not for this.

At least he managed to miracle up a spare pair of sunglasses. The sunlight was really starting to get to him. Having new, light-sensitive eyes always sucks.

He breathes in and out again, slowly, pulling his focus inwards. He can’t remember if he’s ever done this sort of thing while standing on a planet before. First time for everything, he supposes.

Crowley reaches down into the earth with the same instinct for creation that helped build stars before he let them drift from his hands, ready to be cradled by the universe. London’s bedrock isn’t ready to be used and molded yet. It’s not the dust made of free and pure elements floating in the void, waiting to be combined and crafted into something more. He has to make it that way…and the moment he does, London will collapse into the dark recesses of the Earth, just like Typhaon wants.

So: Crowley does something he _really_ should not do after last night. It’s absolute stupidity, but he can’t figure out how to stop Typhaon, alter the bedrock, and save the rest of Central London without it.

He stops Time.

The bedrock changes because he alters it, wills it. London can’t collapse into bedrock that has suddenly been turned into its component atoms, not without the passage of time.

Iron oxide the color of his own hair gives him the fire to trigger an atomic conversion that would otherwise be impossible. He wants it, though, so it happens. Limestone and red sandstone become something new.

Changing the bedrock isn’t enough to save the city from Typhaon. It has to be everything: tunnels, passageways, forgotten crypts, old stone, ancient ruins, the earth itself. He calls up atomic dust and vapor, pulls material from existing structures.

Silicon carbide has the shine of polished gunmetal. It’s the inside of a gun barrel after fire and friction have changed bright steel into the dark evidence of destruction. It looks like black tourmaline in its natural form, though black tourmaline can’t claim the same oily rainbow sheen. Diamonds are harder, but true moissanite formed by silicon carbide makes its sparkling cousin look like a colorless fraud.

He turns London’s Underground into the glittering heart of a dying star. Also did a decent job of recreating Daedalus’s Labyrinth.

Crowley releases his hold on Time, letting the wheel move forward once more. He can feel the echo of his work without even searching for it. Molecules pulled apart, compounds simplified down to the most basic state of existence. The transition of unwanted mud and unimportant soft stones changing forever. Oh—the humans will like that. He ended up tossing diamonds into the mix, after all. He had enough carbon left over for it. Why not?

Somewhere down below New Oxford Street, Typhaon roars in thwarted outrage. He tries, again and again, to burrow through stone that no longer gives way. The only passages left to him are the ones he already had the chance to make. Typhaon can’t even return to Hell, not without the Racnoss to help him cross the dimensional barrier. If this is the only revenge Crowley gets to take against Sandalphon for hurting Aziraphale, at least it’s entertaining revenge.

“Oh, right. Dizzy doesn’t actually equal fine,” Crowley realizes aloud, feeling the world tip over. This time, there’s no one to keep him from falling.

He lands hard and bashes his left elbow on the concrete rooftop. That’s going to hurt later, but he probably doesn’t have to worry about later. He’s pushed this corporation to its limit, and he knows it.

Crowley watches the sky as it finally shines the pale blue of sunlit early morning. It’s the same perfect slate blue as Aziraphale’s eyes.

It’s a nice thing to look at as he loses consciousness.

His angel is going to bloody well kill him.


	28. Centre Point

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabriel tries very hard to be less of a dick and Crowley utterly fails to explain LSD, but at least Central London is empty?
> 
> Except for the Racnoss, anyway.
> 
> A _lot_ of Racnoss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cheer-read by @norcumii and sort-of-beta-read by @drougnor, who is very tired.
> 
> Happy Boxing Day! ...or what's left of it!

Saturday, 23rd May 2020, 06:00

Spa Green Garden, Clerkenwell

“That’s it,” Jack announces as Addicott and Castell brings the last evacuee to Donna’s TARDIS. “Ladies and gentlemen, we are officially done here.”

Israfil shares a dry look with the pair over their Underground find. That particular human definitely needs a bath, and probably a stay in hospital given the state of their liver. If Nat out of Redhill hadn’t picked up on that last ping from his alien setup thing—Israfil is trying not to ask; the TARDIS is enough to deal with—then they might’ve left the stubborn bugger behind for the Racnoss.

“Just thought you lot would like to know that we didn’t see a single moving shadow downstairs,” Addicott says as they escort the leery human over the TARDIS’s altered threshold. “I think the Racnoss-eating shadows are out of the game.”

“They’re not bottomless pits. I’m just happy they ate all of the scouts,” Israfil replies, and then speaks into the mic for the ear-piece. “We’re not done yet, Jack. I have an idiot sibling who’s still out there.”

“Has anyone picked up anything from the tetchy ginger bastard in the last twenty?” Mickey asks.

“He isn’t dead. I can’t pick up on much more than that right now,” Israfil answers him. His brother is unconscious, but nothing has changed since that happened over fifteen minutes ago.

“Not a thing on this end, either, and…yeah, pretty sure that particular comm is offline.” That’s the Doctor sharing his face speaking. He’s slowly driving Israfil mental; the spiky-haired version of his niece/nephew sounds almost _exactly _like Crowley, especially over a mobile signal. “With all of the other personnel across the gap ’cept for us, there should be thirteen comm signals left.”

“There were originally fourteen of these ear-pieces, Doc,” Jack says.

“Er, yeah. I sort of, uh, happened to mine,” the Doctor admits. “_Anyway_, the TARDIS can only find twelve. It is just us on this side of the quarantine line, right?”

“I’m standing in here with Donna, yeah,” Mickey reports. “Israfil and Lucy are out on that whipped-up loading ramp. Last two soldiers left the ship just a moment ago.”

“Gabriel and I are right outside your ship, on the ramp,” Saraquel says, and then adds, “And there is the Lady Martha coming to join us.”

“Sorry I’m late.” Martha sounds annoyed. “Had to make a detour on the A2198 to get here after clearing Newington. I’d have driven over the bloody traffic cordons if I didn’t know they’d been bolted in place.”

“I’m out on the ramp on the west side here with Ba‘al,” Jack says. “Rose, younger you, and Aziraphale are inside, Doc.”

“And that’s twelve,” the Doctor murmurs. “Not a fan of this. Not liking it in the slightest.”

“We can pilot one of the three ships to Centre Point tower,” Donna suggests. “It’s not like it’s all that far.”

Israfil whips his head around, holding completely still as he listens, feels, and scent-tastes the air. He doesn’t know if the humans picked up on that sound, but he noticed. Given her tense posture, so did Lucy. “We’re out of time. The Racnoss are on their way; I can hear them. All of you need to leave, right now, so the Racnoss don’t cross over into the rest of London using these bloody ships!”

“No, _you_ need to depart,” Aziraphale insists. “They’ll need a Healer on the other side of the quarantine fire, Israfil.”

“He’s _my_ brother—”

“He’s _my_ best friend, who also happens to be the man I’m dating, thank you very much,” Aziraphale retorts.

“And you have zero experience with the Racnoss!”

“_Neither_ of you are staying!” Gabriel barks. Israfil winces from the sudden noise. “I am.”

Israfil finds himself staring at Lucy in open-mouthed silence. She looks surprised, too. Gabriel hasn’t exactly been known for altruism in…well, a very long time.

Aziraphale sums things up very well. “What?” he asks blankly.

“I have experience with the Racnoss, and probably several thousand debts to repay at this juncture,” Gabriel answers. “Besides, we won’t be trapped here. Crowley and I can both depart using the mobile signal trick Michael showed us earlier. After I find him, of course.”

“You don’t know where he is,” the youngest of the three Doctors says.

“It’s a very tall office building near Soho, which is an area of this city that isn’t fond of tall buildings. I doubt it will be difficult to locate,” Gabriel responds, sounding rather sarcastic. Israfil would be proud of Gabriel for this new hint of rediscovered maturity if he didn’t currently want to punch him.

“He’s right. Closest thing to a skyscraper in that area is CAA House, and it’s half the size of Centre Point,” Martha says. “Israfil, I know you don’t want to hear it, but Aziraphale is right about medical. I haven’t received medical updates since they cut us off fifty minutes ago, and I don’t know what we’re going to find on the other side.”

“You can’t use the mobile signal trick if there are no active mobile relays!” Jack reminds them. “The only reason we’re talking right now is because of these three lovely ships hosting a signal for us. Once the ships leave, Central London is a dead zone.”

Israfil growls under his breath. “Thank you _so very much_ for phrasing it that way.”

“Sorry,” Jack apologizes. “Different term: Central London will be a black spot.”

“As someone who lived through several instances of the Black Plague, I don’t think that term improves things very much,” Aziraphale says.

“Lack of network access,” the youngest Doctor suggests.

“Better,” Aziraphale allows.

“Wait, wait, wait, I can fix the phone thing—” The other Doctor’s voice drops away before it gets picked up again, faintly, through the ear-piece. “Give me your mobile.”

“Er—why?” Gabriel asks cautiously.

“Because once I’m done with it, that mobile will work anywhere, even in a black spot, or places like outer space,” the Doctor explains. “Gimme, c’mon, we’re in a hurry.”

“Very well,” Gabriel caves. Lucy smirks at Israfil, who isn’t doing a good job of not being entertained at his older brother’s expense.

“Oh, that’s lovely,” the Doctor croons. Israfil desperately wants that one to stop sounding _so much like Crowley_. “Someone’s seen _Minority Report_ a bit too often, haven’t they?”

“What in Heaven’s name is that?”

Israfil bites back a sudden snort of laughter at Gabriel’s confusion. Gabriel’s introduction to human cinema should not start with that particular film. Crowley only showed it to Israfil to introduce some varying concepts of human science fiction, but mostly he’d just been bewildered.

“There, all done. Back to you it goes, and yes, Martha, I will do the same thing to your new mobile, but later, please. Israfil is right; there are a _lot_ of Racnoss approaching. No, scratch that, I can see them! Get inside, all of you!” the Doctor yells.

Lucy points; Israfil follows the line of her finger and grimaces as he spies flashes of red on the horizon line. They’re probably a few miles off, but as Jack learned earlier—the Racnoss are fast. “Shit. Gabriel, you’d better bring him back.”

“Of course I will.” Gabriel sounds as if Israfil just insulted him. “I’m leaving for the tower right now.”

“He meant it. I don’t think he took off so much as teleported,” Saraquel says a moment later.

“Get in here!” Donna orders, which shakes Israfil out of his contemplation of the approaching Racnoss. They’re close enough now for Israfil to see their many glittering eyes. The pack is being led by a brown-skinned Hunter, one who must have scented Celestial blood and led his sisters all the way to this TARDIS.

Lucy precedes him up the ramp. Israfil is the one to close the doors. “And we’re leaving now,” Donna announces, pulling a lever at the console. “Next stop is Heathrow, and I’d really like to know whose hair-brained decision _that_ was.”

“The government’s,” Rose says dryly, and the youngest Doctor laughs.

The only bit of movement Israfil picks up on is the ship’s landing, a resonating bass thump. “And that’s us on the ground again. How was your first teleportation via spaceship, Israfil?” Donna asks.

Israfil lifts both hands in a vague shrug. “I didn’t even notice we were moving, to be honest. I suppose that means it wasn’t bad.”

“That’s because I’m a better pilot than Spaceman.”

“Oi!” the Doctor in question yells.

Israfil sighs. There _has_ to be a way to make that version of the Doctor sound different from his brother over the mobile signal.

* * * *

Gabriel has flown above London more than he is used to admitting. It’s all right that others know he spent time here now, but before, he was supposed to disdain it. The planet was a staging area, nothing more than a battleground…even if Gabriel would miss his current tailor.

He fell so far from what he was meant to be. That he didn’t Fall further is truly a gift of Her grace, because he certainly deserved it.

The Racnoss are flooding the streets of London. Even if Gabriel can’t make out details from this height, their red skin is distinctive. They’re spreading outwards in waves, searching for prey.

Before leaving, the humans were instructed to lock up their various pets in their homes with food, water, and supplies for a week’s time. Gabriel doesn’t know if a locked door will stop a Racnoss from seeking out something as small as a human’s pet dog, not when they’ll be capable of scenting larger, plentiful prey beyond the ring of hellfire encircling Central London, but finds himself hoping that it will. He used to have a soft spot for the creations who shared a planet with the dominant sentient species. It’s probably time he indulged again.

It took a pair of Healers and God Herself to help him figure it out, but Gabriel hates what he became. He wants to remember how to care in truth, not a polished façade. He’ll never again be who he was before the War in Heaven, but that’s all right. He’ll settle for being less of a prick.

Gabriel looks down to inspect the damage that Typhaon wrought before Crowley did…whatever it is that he’s done. They could all feel it, Celestials, demons, and Time Lords alike. Crowley said he was turning this human city’s bedrock into silicon carbide, but to what extent? Silicon and carbon are elements of creation that Gabriel is fond of, particularly carbon. Many life-forms in Her creation are carbon-based, including one that evolved in a star system that Gabriel made eons ago. He is a bit biased, showing such favoritism, but then, so is God.

Typhaon’s rampage was halted east of Centre Point, midway between the business tower and a geometric square of green. Between Soho and that midway point, the damage is…upsetting. Gabriel didn’t expect to feel anything about human rubble, but to see so much of his youngest brother’s home destroyed angers him. Gabriel’s only sense of Typhaon is deep below the earth, in the tunnel that brought Samael to the surface. He wanted to balance the scales, and instead, Typhaon has gone.

Gabriel will settle for the satisfaction of knowing that until Heaven and Hell are synched back to Earth time, Typhaon is trapped here. He can’t cross the dimensional barrier and hide himself Below, not without assistance.

Gabriel sweeps closer in a slow, downward spiral to the rooftop of Centre Point’s tower, making certain no Racnoss noticed his flight across the sky. He lands at the edge of the roof and discovers that Crowley’s sunglasses are tucked up against the concrete edge. Gabriel retrieves them, pockets them, and goes to check on his brother.

Crowley is sprawled out on the top of the tower, unmoving. Whenever he lies on the ground, Crowley always gives the impression that he is composed of gangly long limbs and not much else. His eyes are closed, and at first, it isn’t alarming that he isn’t breathing. Their corporations were designed to breathe only when necessary, not at a constant rate.

_Crowley and Aziraphale—and now Israfil—live among humans,_ Gabriel thinks suddenly. _They’re used to mimicking human breath_.

“Crowley.” When he gets no response, Gabriel kneels down next to him. “Crowley, wake—oh,” he says as his hand comes to rest on Crowley’s shoulder. That’s exactly the problem. He _cannot_ wake. There is so little strength left to his brother that it’s like viewing desolation.

Zaherael had to have known. He _had_ to have known he was riding the edge, able to see that lifeless desert forming, and yet his idiot little brother altered the bedrock anyway.

Zaherael’s core, his shining center, is on the verge of unravelling. There isn’t even enough energy left for his link to Raphael to function properly, or this would have balanced itself out as it was happening.

No wonder Raphael allowed Gabriel to search for his twin in his place. He wouldn’t have been able to sense the dire nature of Zaherael’s situation.

Gabriel nearly panics. Zaherael needs a Healer, needs Raphael, but there isn’t time. Without the ships providing a path over hellfire, he can’t get to Raphael, anyway. Gabriel knows how to do the mobile signal trick for himself, but not for someone else, especially someone unconscious.

“You can’t die yet. I’m not finished making things right.” Gabriel is still _learning_ how to make things right, trying to undo all the harm he’s instigated over the last…four thousand years? Six thousand? Ten? He really doesn’t know anymore, and the length of time doesn’t matter. He just needs to fix it.

“I need you to witness my apology to Aziraphale,” Gabriel whispers. “I need you to hear that I mean it, even if I’m still trying to figure out everything I need to beg forgiveness for.” He often thinks that Uriel got off easy; she hadn’t really done much at all to harm Aziraphale until Armageddon had almost begun. Her apology was simple, whereas Gabriel’s track record with Aziraphale resembles what Typhaon did to London.

“So: I’m going to cheat. Isn’t that what you kept telling us to do?”

Gabriel calls his sword to his hand, watching flame spread down the length of the blade. Holy fire is never-ending, a fount linked to God Themself. He hasn’t done this since the War against the Fallen, so long ago, but it was then that Gabriel learned the fire of his sword can be directed. When the twin Healers could not help him, already working to save others, sometimes it was Gabriel’s hand that brought their fellow angels back from the brink.

He uses himself as a conduit between the fire and the bony hand of Zaherael’s corporation. Holy fire can heal only when it is gentled, cradled by someone who knows it well. Otherwise it’s just as destructive to an angel as hellfire, granting a permanent death.

It’s for the best that he had nothing to do with Samael’s defeat. Hatred still burns in Gabriel’s heart, mingling with the loss, the weight, of what Samael took from him.

The fire traveling through his veins is soothing. Gabriel idly wonders if a burning holy weapon is capable of killing him any longer, or if he’s made himself immune to that sort of destruction.

Perhaps that’s what Aziraphale and Crowley did, developing immunities to hellfire and holy water due to millennia of proximity to each other. Or maybe Crowley would never have been felled by Holy Water at all, but when asked, Crowley insisted that definitely wasn’t the case, fuck you, and churches on holy ground are awful, so a long-term immunity is unlikely. Those eleven years before Armageddon’s failure, perhaps, when they were all but living in each other’s pockets…

Crowley’s loose fingers suddenly tighten around Gabriel’s hand. The words he mumbles are so foreign that it takes Gabriel a moment to translate them, mostly because it was all garbled swearing.

Gabriel wants to collapse in relief, but he still isn’t…such displays are difficult. “You still speak Sumerian?” he asks in a mild voice.

“Guess so?” Crowley’s eyes flicker open before he whimpers and squeezes them shut again. “Bloody fuck, that was bright, fucking hell. Where are my glasses?”

“I found them at the edge of the roof. They’re in my jacket pocket.” Gabriel tries to get a read on his little brother’s energy and strength, but holy fire is intense enough to wash those details from his sight and senses.

“Oh. Thanks.” Crowley moves his shoulders in a way that elicits loud cracking pops from his spine. “Surprised I didn’t discorporate.”

“You weren’t going to,” Gabriel says tersely.

Crowley frowns for a moment before he lets out a high-pitched nonsense sound, his expression open and panicked. “Oh, _shit_. I was not aiming for dead!”

“You shouldn’t have been aiming for discorporation, either!” Gabriel retorts. “What is _wrong_ with you, Crowley?”

“I’m stupid, I was a demon for a very long time so my standards of living and survival are _really_ not healthy, and oh yes, I’ve been running on fumes after spending six months in Hell just yesterday. Then I channeled infinity in order to blow up an arsehole and turned everything below street level into silicon carbide. That part was nostalgic, by the way. Think the humans would be confused if I decided the sky needed about a dozen more stars? Pretty sure I can do that again.”

“Not right now, you couldn’t.” Gabriel shakes his head. “And you’re not stupid, Crowley. You’re…optimistically ambitious.” Crowley would probably deny that truth, but it’s been one of Zaherael’s traits since his creation.

Crowley lifts his free hand to shield his eyes before he opens them again. “You can stop doing that with the sword and the fire, by the way. If I’m babbling, I’ll live.”

“Is it enough?” Gabriel asks. “I want to be certain.”

“Can’t tell,” Crowley admits after running his tongue over his top left incisor. “Still not going to die, though.”

That will have to be enough. Gabriel stops channeling the flame from his sword, letting everything he’d drawn forth ease its way back. Even if Gabriel really has developed an immunity to holy fire, he’d still prefer not to char his insides. “Done,” Gabriel announces, releasing Crowley’s hand.

“Wicked.” Crowley props himself up on his elbows. “Sky’s a different color. What time is it, anyway?”

Gabriel checks his wristwatch, a very expensive timepiece that he’s quite fond of. Crowley had startled the hell out of Gabriel three months ago by complimenting it; he hadn’t realized they were at that sort of…of communication point. “Ten minutes past six o’clock. We’re the only beings left in Central London.”

Crowley’s jaw falls open before he scrambles to his feet. “What? What the hell are you still doing here, then?”

Gabriel is gaining a true appreciation for the human gesture of rolling one’s eyes. “Because _you_ were still here,” he replies, sending his sword back to its waiting place in the ether.

“Then we’re both stuck here? Just for the record, I hate this plan.”

Gabriel stands up, straightens his clothing, and retrieves his mobile phone. “Meet the only device capable of dialing out of Central London right now, courtesy of a Time Lord and a very high-pitched device he called a sonic screwdriver. I haven’t yet decided if I want one, or if I want to break that thing in half for what it did to my ears.”

With that explanation out of the way, Gabriel leans in close to Crowley. “Why does the Time Lord resemble you and Israfil? It’s nearly an exact likeness. Especially his voice.”

“Uhm…can that wait until maybe after we’ve saved London?” Crowley asks.

Gabriel crosses his arms. “No.”

Crowley pulls his _I don’t want to have this conversation_ face. Some days Gabriel thinks himself blind and stupid for not recognizing his brother thousands of years ago, demon or not. “Give me my sunglasses first,” Crowley says.

“Yes, fine.” Gabriel should have offered that already.

Crowley scowls at the scuffs on the lenses and then miracles them renewed. “Better,” he mutters, sliding them on. “So much better. You know all three Time Lords running around the planet right now are the same one, yeah?”

Gabriel nods. “I do know how Time Lords operate. I’ve never heard of regenerations of the same Time Lord congregating like this, but I understand the mechanics, Crowley.”

“Ehh.” Crowley’s mouth twists in discomfort. “Got the impression that they sort of accidentally do the congregating part a lot. Okay, so: in 1020 BC in Dardanus, a Time Lady showed up in a tavern where I was busy drinking myself blind and asked me for a baby.”

That takes a moment to sink in. “And—and you _gave her one?_” Gabriel asks in complete disbelief. “You fathered a Nephilim? Are you _insane?_” Then he pauses. “Wait, you actually had carnal relations with someone?”

“OH MY GOOD FUCKING GOD!” Crowley shouts, turning to pace a few steps away before facing Gabriel again. “Of course I didn’t have carnal relations with her, you bloody wanker, and my kid isn’t a Nephilim because their mother wasn’t bloody human!”

Gabriel grudgingly acknowledges that point. “Yes, well—WHY?” he yells. “Was it a demonic deal?”

“The way you say demonic deal is actually hysterical,” Crowley observes, grinning. “No, it wasn’t a deal. It was a balanced trade, Gabriel. The Time Lady wanted a baby. I didn’t want to be responsible for the fall of Troy. Win/win, problem solved, I told her to take her kid and never bloody well come back, except…” Crowley flings his arms up into the air. “Kids have a mind of their own, and guess who I met yesterday for the second first time?”

“Second first time—no, don’t explain that. I don’t want to know.” Gabriel snorts out a breath of air. “Why are _three of them_ here, Crowley?”

“That part isn’t my fault, that’s their doing—look, can we leave already? I don’t wanna stick around in Racnoss Central. The Racnoss can climb, you know.”

“I recall that, yes.” Gabriel selects Saraquel’s number from his contact list and dials before placing the call on speaker. He glances around and then places his mobile on the edge of some sort of fan-powered unit. It seems more sensible to try the signal-riding trick without holding onto the mobile.

“Please tell me that neither of you are dead,” Saraquel greets him.

“Dead people are usually not dialing mobile phones,” Gabriel replies. “Granted, I suppose there are exceptions to everything, and Crowley is an idiot.”

“That was mostly not called for,” Crowley says.

“That isn’t a denial, either.”

“Hold on,” Saraquel says. “I’m putting this call on speaker before Aziraphale assaults me.”

Saraquel’s voice is immediately replaced by a frantic Principality. “Crowley, are you all right?”

“Yeah, sure. Absolutely tickety boo,” Crowley answers, pausing. “I think.”

Even to Gabriel, the hesitation is noticeable. “Crowley,” Aziraphale says in a cautious tone, “you once swore to me that you were never going to utter that phrase, because it deserved to die.”

“Whoops. Sorry. Sort of working off a contact high here.” Crowley gives his head a brief shake and looks at Gabriel. “No bloody wonder everyone you’ve ever done that to immediately fell on their face afterwards.”

Now that he knows what’s going on, Gabriel smiles with a complete lack of remorse. “I’d forgotten about that, actually.”

“Did what?” the female Time Lord pipes up. “And before any of you say a bloody word, it’s a conference call because I cheated and made it that way, I’m fine, I’m behaving myself an’ staying in Sheffield, but Wilf needed a lie-down and I’m too twitchy to just sit here doing nothing, soooo Wilf might not be able to use the communications setup anymore.” She takes a breath. “Who did what?”

“Wow. I managed to keep you out of things for an entire thirty minutes,” Israfil says. “I feel like I should be congratulated.”

“Oh, yeah, you totally should,” the female Time Lord agrees. “I mean, normally no one succeeds at that trick at all. Someone please explain with the doing things?”

“Eh, literal fuel by fire, I guess?” Crowley hedges. “It’s Gabriel’s fault.”

“That is a filthy lie,” Gabriel mutters. Crowley’s current state is only a little bit his fault.

Israfil whistles. “Oh, that trick. How are you even upright, Brother?”

Crowley pushes his glasses more firmly onto his face. “I’ve never told you about LSD, have I? Dropping acid? Tripping bollocks, anything like that, Israfil?”

“I have no idea what any of that means, so no.”

Crowley sniffs and shoves his hands into his trouser pockets. “Let’s just call it prep for dealing with being force-fed holy fire and leave the rest alone, because I’m too high to explain LSD right now.”

The female Time Lord starts laughing. “Someone take pictures, I wanna see what this part’s like.”

“What—no!” Crowley scowls. “Besides, it would have to be video.” He gets too twitchy for pockets and starts wiggling his fingers, hands hovering just over his legs.

“Are you too inebriated to travel through a mobile signal?” Aziraphale asks.

Crowley looks at Gabriel, tilts his head, and says, “Right, yeah, I never told Aziraphale how I figured out how to travel along telephone lines.”

“Crowley!”

Crowley grins. “Zira, come on. The 1960s were amazing. Also, really mental, and I can’t remember 1968 at all.”

Aziraphale sighs. “Oh, good Lord.”

“Yeah, uh, get out of the way of the mobile, by the way, I really want to leave. After you, Gabriel,” Crowley says, gesturing at the mobile.

Gabriel glowers at him. “Do you really think I’m going to leave first, especially with you…high, as you put it?”

“Yes, I do, because if something goes wrong, I can still get out of here,” Crowley retorts bluntly.

Gabriel hesitates. “How?”

Crowley gives him a look of dry disbelief and then points at the distant wall of hellfire. “I lived in that shit for like, ten thousand years, or…some span of time that was very long. That kind of immunity doesn’t just go away because you switch teams.”

Gabriel resists the urge to bury his face in his hands. “Look, just…please use the mobile. I expect you to be right behind me. Saraquel, where am I going to find myself?”

“Heathrow,” Saraquel replies. “You might wish to pop out expecting to plug your ears. I think they’re about to send a very large plane with very loud engines down the runway.”

“Guess the no-fly zone is no longer in effect,” Crowley says. “Gabriel, please hurry up and do the thing so we can get out of here!”

“All right!” Gabriel takes a breath, resists the urge to shut his eyes, and alters his form in order to follow the mobile signal. He does _not_ enjoy the process, even if it’s swift and efficient.

He emerges on the other side and straightens up, standing next to Saraquel, Aziraphale, Israfil, and a table where Saraquel’s mobile phone is lying. “I really don’t like—” He flinches when Saraquel’s mobile emits a shrieking squawk.

Saraquel grabs the mobile, frowns, and then starts dialing Gabriel’s number from memory instead of using the contact list. “Oh, no. I don’t want to hear that. I really don’t.”

“Saraquel,” Gabriel whispers. This is not supposed to happen. It _can’t_ happen.

He can’t abandon his little brother.

“Out of service message?” Israfil asks, looking paler than usual.

“Yes.” Saraquel drops the mobile back onto the table in frustration. “How did you know?”

Israfil points at his ear. “That wasn’t a disconnected signal, either. I heard a Racnoss’s steps on concrete just before I heard something splinter that mobile’s glass screen. Then the electronic shriek, then the call drops.”

“Oh, shit.” Saraquel lets out an angry hiss. “A camouflaged Hunter.”

“Israfil?” Aziraphale’s attention is focused on the other Healer.

“He’s still alive, for the moment,” Israfil answers the unspoken question. Then he swallows. “You’ll certainly know at once if that changes, though.”

* * * *

Crowley backs away as the camouflaged Hunter fully reveals itself. “Was it really necessary to step on the mobile?”

“Yesssss,” the Hunter responds, digging its foreleg a bit more thoroughly into Gabriel’s mobile. Its glass was forged to withstand just about anything, but no one in Heaven’s design department had the Racnoss in mind. The mobile shatters into pieces that even a miracle wouldn’t put back together.

Not that Crowley has time to worry about that. He’s busy turning and running, leaping off the rooftop before he even bothers to call forth his wings. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck—fuck!” He draws in his wing and banks hard to the left when the Hunter leaps after him. The Hunter misses Crowley, but doesn’t helpfully splat on the ground. Instead, it catches itself on a thick web spun between the lower half of the tower and the car park below.

That is not Crowley’s preferred type of cheating. He doesn’t like any sort of cheating that’s meant to make him dead.

“Nope, not doing it!” Crowley dives to increase his distance from the Hunter and then angles upwards again. A sudden updraft takes him far from the ground, well from any potential leaping, planet-eating bastard spiders.

He didn’t actually want to travel through hellfire today. The immunity thing is sort of just a theory. A very good theory, and it makes sense, but he hasn’t tested it. At all.

Aziraphale is _definitely_ going to kill him.

Bonus, though. It turns out that adrenaline cuts through a holy fire contact high pretty well.

Crowley is no longer high. He’s bloody terrified.

“Okay. Pull yourself together. You made a shit demon, and you’re probably a shit archangel, but you’re good at saving your own arse,” Crowley tells himself. “Think, you flash bastard. Think!”

Hellfire quarantine line. Everything below the street is silicon carbide, and he’s not very good at digging tunnels, even as a snake. The Racnoss would probably eat him before he got anywhere, anyway.

Crowley doesn’t sense humans, angels, or any demons anywhere in Central London, not even Typhaon. Maghunta and her volunteers must have left by crossover point, or strolling through hellfire, or they…didn’t. If it’s the latter, Crowley really does hope they died by discorporation instead of by Racnoss. Maghunta wasn’t a bad sort, for given values of demon. She’d thought Crowley was funny, and hadn’t been lying about it. He doesn’t want her to be permanently dead.

Distraction. Back to the escape plan. She’s probably fine.

He is probably a little bit still high.

Crowley snaps his fingers, but nothing happens. Nope, too tired to teleport. That would have been useful. Not that he can actually remember if he can teleport through hellfire. He had to drive through the M25’s ring of hellfire, didn’t he? Probably not, then.

He should have let Gabriel keep on with the energy transfer. Except then he and Gabriel might both be dead because Crowley didn’t notice that chameleon motherfucker until it was destroying Gabriel’s mobile. Not a good solution, wishes were fishes, basket of eels—oh, that’s definitely not how that saying goes.

When is the last time he ate an eel, anyway? He can’t remember.

Crowley flies closer to the wall of hellfire, prodding at his upper incisor and its sharp edge with his tongue. It’s not like this would be the first time he’s fallen through fire. Literally Falling is so much worse. He was on fire for that, too. Took the shine from his feathers and left them covered in soot.

Water? Water might be a good idea. It’s definitely softer to land on than concrete or asphalt or buildings or rocks.

He contemplates landing in the Thames for about two seconds before he has to stick his tongue out of his mouth just to think about other smell-tastes than the bloody Thames. No. Not the Thames. He has standards.

The water has to be close. It has to be big enough for Crowley to survive crashing into it without breaking every bone in his body.

He’s still not going to use the Thames.

Rose’s TARDIS exit point was in Kensington. Someone might still be there, maybe? Depends on how efficient the others were at moving the Central London types away from the exit zones.

Crowley lets the wind hold him aloft as he hangs in the air. The Serpentine in Hyde Park could work.

The Serpentine is also full of bloody rocks. He doesn’t want them to become literal bloody rocks because he missed the water. That would suck. He’s really okay with this day improving, even just a little bit, because it’s been a long six months in a week that’s only lasted two sodding days.

There’s more water in Kensington Gardens, isn’t there? Something close to the palace…

Crowley raises both eyebrows. There’s an idea.

* * * *

It takes only a few moments of dear Not-Jane fiddling with their communication signals to restore the ear-pieces to full functionality. The two Doctors spend their time converting mobiles to ‘works anywhere’ mode with those noisy sonic screwdrivers. Aziraphale honestly can’t tell the difference in his mobile, before or after, but Donna, Martha, and Rose seem very pleased. He supposes he’ll take their word for it.

That allows a mixed group of angels, demons, humans, and one Time Lord, who is currently three different people, to be back online. For now, they’re sticking to their own private frequency, which Aziraphale prefers. The public channels are almost overwhelming to listen to.

For whatever reason, Crowley must have told Gabriel about the Doctor’s parentage. Gabriel stopped both of the Doctors on-site, stared them in the eye for a moment, and then stalked off while shaking his head. Aziraphale is used to reading Gabriel-speak; that was not necessarily disapproval. Gabriel’s disapproval is usually far more condescending.

“What was all that about?” the youngest Doctor asks, not really directing the question at any particular person.

“Pretty sure my brother just outed himself,” Israfil says, resting his chin on his hands while his eyes remain fixated on distant Central London. “Oh, that’s my nephew,” he adds when Saraquel looks up.

Saraquel lets out a derisive snort. “I figured that out when I met the youngest and the oldest, let alone the one that decided your genetic blueprint was designed to be replicated in non-ginger form.”

“How’d you know, then?” Rose asks, smirking.

“I was made to know and understand people. Probably too well,” Saraquel adds under his breath.

Martha frowns. “Translated?”

“He means he fathered at least three of the Nephilim,” Aziraphale explains. Saraquel scowls and threatens to throw the only remaining and functional Heaven-issued mobile at him.

“Nephilim.” The Doctor that Rose dubbed John furrows his brow. “S’that what we are, then?” he asks, gesturing between himself and his younger self.

“Nephilim?” Not-Jane repeats through the ear-piece. “No, we’re not that, Sandshoes.” She ignores the angry growl the Doctor emits in response to that nickname. “Crowley said in Dardanus that the Nephilim thing only applied to Celestials and humans. Well, he didn’t say it exactly that way, but I’ve had plenty of time to fill in the blanks and no, we’re not Nephilim. We’d bloody well have wings if we did,” she mutters resentfully. “Adam’s only half-Celestial and _he_ got wings!”

Ba‘al raises both eyebrows. “He is not half-Celestial.”

“What is he, then?” Rose asks. “He seemed to fit the Celestial profile well enough.”

“Because he chose to do so,” Aziraphale says.

“True.” Ba‘al has improved in personality so well in recent months that they no longer glare at Aziraphale or Crowley regarding the Not-Apocalypse. “Adam is half-Celestial and half-Demon.”

Martha sounds like she just choked on her own spit. “He’s what? How do you manage that?”

“It isn’t as if we’re a different bloody _species_,” Israfil snaps. “We’re not even that much different from you lot, or Nephilim would never have bloody well existed!”

“Who did Lucy find who was willing to—how did—just—” Saraquel gives up and rests his head on the table. “Never mind. I don’t want the answer to any of those questions.”

Israfil is suddenly standing upright, taut as a wire. “I need someone to get me to the Round Pond in Kensington Gardens, because I have no idea where that is.”

“What’s happening at the Round Pond?” Aziraphale asks, and immediately feels his eyes widen. “Oh, dear. Is it Crowley?”

Israfil nods. “We need to go, right now.”

“We’ll take the TARDIS. Swapping back for now?” John asks the other Doctor.

The youngest Doctor ponders it for a moment before waving his hand at the well-landed lineup of the three ships. Aziraphale isn’t as sensitive to that sort of thing as Crowley, but he’s almost certain they’re still gossiping with each other. “Yeah, you go ahead. I need to stay here in case someone tries to make a stupid decision, like having this upcoming meeting without all of us.”

“They can bloody well try,” Not-Jane mutters through the comm. “I’m recovering from an injury, not dead, not even slightly inconvenienced at the moment. If they try to pull that nonsense, they’re going to be dealing with so many computer errors…”

Israfil pauses with his hand on the open TARDIS door. “SIT DOWN.”

“Sitting! I’m totally sitting!” Not-Jane yelps. “Bugger, you’re very good at that!”

“I think all of us nearly sat just from the proximity,” Martha gasps, hand against her chest. “Tone it down, or maybe teach me to do that, all right?”

The Doctor that Rose calls John, Crowley’s brown-haired double, pilots the TARDIS he says is his. Aziraphale has to admit, he can’t really tell the difference between this TARDIS and the one piloted by the slightly younger Doctor. Only Not-Jane’s ship is distinct from the other two.

Israfil has his hands wrapped around the railing on the entry ramp, a grim cast to his features that does not bode well. Rose is standing next to him, and doesn’t bat an eyelash at the slightly rough ride. She insisted upon accompanying them, saying her medical training isn’t on par with Doctor Martha Jones, but it’ll do in a pinch. She was also the one to point out that both of Torchwood One’s co-heads should be in Heathrow right now with Jack, not jaunting off to Kensington Gardens.

Ba‘al is standing with Aziraphale, scowling. If someone had told Aziraphale last summer that he would find the First Lord of Hell to be a good ally, one who actively cares about Crowley, Aziraphale would have taken that person off for a full mental evaluation himself.

The trip takes less than thirty seconds before the ship emits the bass thump that announces its landing. Aziraphale is surprised by how quickly he’s grown used to the sound.

Israfil is the first to escape the ship, all but teleporting through the TARDIS doors. Aziraphale somehow manages to follow just after him, even though the others are admittedly in much better physical condition and should have easily outpaced him.

The TARDIS is parked just off the path in the field to the east of Round Pond, facing Kensington Palace. By the time the others are out of the TARDIS, Israfil is looking around in frustration. “There are two bodies of water in this park. Which one is which?”

“That one across the green. The one that’s literally round.” Rose gestures at Round Pond, kind enough not to be sarcastic about it. “And it’s actually two parks. Kensington is on this side.” She touches his arm and turns herself and Israfil around. “That’s the Long Water over there, and on its other side is Hyde Park. That hellfire barrier is on the A4202—oh my God.”

Aziraphale glances up and is _not_ ashamed of the fact that he lets out a horrified shriek. A literal ball of fire just shot through the hellfire barrier on the border of Hyde Park.

Israfil’s swearing is almost incoherent. “Yeah, he really is that fucking stupid.” By the time Aziraphale recognizes that the ball of fire has a distinct shape, and is descending at high velocity and steep angle, Israfil is almost all the way to Round Pond.

“Bugger!” Aziraphale realizes, hurrying to catch up. Rose and the Doctor are right behind Israfil, running with their hands locked together.

Ba‘al rolls their eyes before grabbing Aziraphale’s arm and simply teleporting them to Round Pond’s footpath. “Think,” they admonish sternly. Then Ba‘al returns their attention to Israfil, who is in the water up to his knees just off the shoreline, tracking the fireball’s path with his eyes gone fully reptilian blue.

“Uh oh.” Rose and the Doctor start shouting in the direction of the pond, but they’re not trying to get Israfil’s attention. They’re waving at the—

_Oh. Oh, my._ A vast number of ducks, geese, and assorted waterfowl are enjoying Round Pond’s apparent tranquility. Aziraphale gasps in a breath and miracles the entire lot of them over to the Serpentine. A number of very confused birds begin causing a terrible racket that doesn’t cover up the sound of fire shooting through the air.

“You are no fun,” Ba‘al says. Aziraphale can’t tell if they’re serious or not.

“That pond is only sixteen feet deep on a good day.” The Doctor’s expression is a bit wide-eyed, one eyebrow raised as he tracks the fire. “But ya know, if you’re gonna do a thing…”

While Aziraphale is still standing there like a useless bloody lump, the fireball crashes into the pond. The roar of intensely hot fire striking cold water is deafening.

The sound fades into the loud hiss of jetting steam. Thick plumes of vaporized water quickly layer Round Pond in a layer of fog.

Aziraphale doesn’t realize he’s drenched from a great deal of water escaping the pond until a warm spring breeze wafts over him. Rose and the Doctor are just as soaked. Ba‘al has already miracled themself dry.

The Doctor glances down at the water lapping the concrete edge. “Right, so, I’d say Round Pond is now about ten feet deep. Maybe a bit less.”

“Doctor!” Rose prods at him with a stern glare. “Your dad was just on _fire_. Please focus!”

“But then I’d have to _think about it_!” the Doctor retorts. “And I’m not ready for thinking about it. That is definitely a job for older me!”

Israfil dives into the water and surfaces closer to the middle of the pond, glancing around. “Crowley! Where are you, you sodding idiot?”

Aziraphale catches a flash of movement before Israfil is yanked down into the water. “Oh, dear.”

Israfil surfaces, sputtering. “You wanker!”

Crowley pops up next to him, his hair plastered in a mess across his face. “No, see, the word you were looking for was _sodden_ idiot.”

“No, I was looking for ARSEHOLE!” Israfil grabs hold of Crowley and shoves him back under the water. “Complete bloody arsehole!”

Crowley surfaces again, slinging his hair away from his face. “Yeah, fair.” They both start swimming back to the shoreline. “I hope no one expects me to get out of this pond. The water’s cold, and I’m pretty sure I burnt something. I’m the something, by the way.”

“Right, I’ll fix that in a minute. I’m not done yelling. WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?” Israfil shouts as they find the pond’s bottom and stand up to walk back to the shoreline. Israfil does so with a human body’s typical awkwardness, whereas Crowley, with his water-logged wings, looks like a half-drowned corvid. “YOU FLEW THROUGH BLOODY HELLFIRE!”

Crowley scowls at Israfil. “Well, it’s not like I had a car to do it with this time, since my car is currently at the bottom of a very big fucking hole in Soho!”

“Uh. Er.” Aziraphale coughs a little. “No, it isn’t.”

Crowley pauses mid-step and stares at Aziraphale. “It’s not?”

“No. It’s, er, in Sheffield. I felt a bit paranoid about how things might proceed this morning, and…well. I moved it,” Aziraphale explains, feeling oddly nervous. Crowley is so particular about the Bentley, and Aziraphale didn’t ask before relocating one of Crowley’s most prized possessions.

“You moved my car. My car isn’t in the bottom of a pit.” Crowley sloshes the rest of the way to the footpath’s edge, holding up his hand. Aziraphale pulls him out of the pond, which is more difficult than usual. Their wings are usually excellent at repelling water, but they were not designed for underwater activities.

The Doctor and Rose help Israfil out of the pond. He stands there trying to peel his hair out of his eyes before remembering there are other options. “Wanker,” Israfil repeats, scowling as he miracles himself clean and dry. Then Israfil glances at Rose and the Doctor and does the same for them.

“I love that trick,” Rose comments, smiling.

Crowley is utterly soaked, dripping water from head to toe as he stands in front of Aziraphale. His face and hands are bright red, like a day at the shore gone awry. Aziraphale can smell burnt hair and feathers, though he doesn’t see any visible damage. Crowley’s denims, jacket, and boots seem to have fared better, though his denims are torn at the knees. “You moved my car,” Crowley repeats.

“I, uh. Yes. I did, rather,” Aziraphale replies. He tries not to twist his hands together as Crowley continues to subject Aziraphale to that same intent stare.

Crowley suddenly grips the lapels of Aziraphale’s coat and yanks him forward, kisses him hard on the lips. Aziraphale opens his mouth in surprise and finds there is now a tongue involved.

Oh. _Oh_.

Just as suddenly as it began, Crowley jerks his head back, but he doesn’t release Aziraphale’s coat. “Thank you,” he gasps. “Just—thank you, angel.”

Aziraphale probably blushes the same bright red as Crowley’s burnt face. “You’re quite welcome, my dear.”

Crowley grins and then looks in the direction of Hyde Park. “I really don’t ever want to do that again, though.”

“N-no. Please don’t. That was quite upsetting!” Aziraphale all but stutters.

“I am seconding that request,” Ba‘al says in an odd tone. “I think I am having what humans call a flashback. I do not like it.”

Israfil sighs and goes to Ba‘al, wrapping his arms around them. “Just breathe. I’m here, sweetheart.”

Crowley looks at them for a moment before he turns his attention to Rose and the Doctor. “Right, that was a thing. Oh, and Falling is so much worse than what I just did. That was…” Crowley shrugs, somehow turning it into a complicated gesture that implies quite a bit of equivocation.

Aziraphale shivers. Crowley never discusses his actual Fall. He’s made jokes. He’s spoken of what happened before he left Heaven, and what happened after his arrival in Gehenna, but never details of the Fall itself.

The Doctor glances at Crowley, the pond, and then looks up at the wall of hellfire. “You didn’t know that was going to work.”

Crowley is already squeezing his eyes shut when Aziraphale yelps, “Crowley!”

“Oh. Probably shouldn’t have said that, should I’ve?” the Doctor asks. Rose elbows him and shakes her head. “Sorry. Don’t really have a verbal filter. Or the ability to shut up.”

“It’s genetic,” Crowley says, and then reaches out until Aziraphale relents and accepts his hand. “Angel. It was a well-informed educated guess. If I’d been wrong…well, hellfire is kinder than the Racnoss.”

Aziraphale instinctively squeezes the hand he’s holding until Crowley lets out a faint hiss of pain. “Neither, do you hear me? Don’t you _dare_.”

Crowley sighs and embraces him, which reminds Aziraphale of the fact that they are both still drenched. He snaps his fingers, finding it to be an immediate improvement to no longer smell of pond water. Crowley is able to raise his wings, give them a full stretch, and hide them again.

“Not if I can help it, angel,” Crowley murmurs against Aziraphale’s ear. “I promise.” Then he steps back and squints as the sun chooses that moment to leap out from the day’s cloud cover. “Oh, not that again—wait, where the hell are my glasses?”

* * * *

Jenn and tiny Francis get lucky. They’re not out of Central London for long before more of the army types direct her to board one of the big buses heading north out of London. She snags a window seat and ends up sitting in front of a pair of old people, definitely heavy with old married couple vibes. A middle-aged bloke sits down next to Jenn, cradles his bag in his lap, and promptly goes to sleep.

She blinks at her seatmate for a moment. How does that even. London is being evacuated, and this bloke is _sleeping_. Who does that?

Eavesdropping on the old couple is a great way to pass the time until the bus starts to move, finally, after the sun comes up. Old Harold and Bessie are nattering on about the aliens they’re almost certain they’ve been seeing since the evacuation started.

Jenn is so bored already, and trying hard not to let on that she’s scared, because she’s never actually left London before. Francis is asleep in her jumper pocket, so he can’t distract her right now, either.

Bugger it. Jenn turns in her seat, standing up on her knees so she can peer around the headrest. “If you saw any of ’em with wings made of feathers, that lot aren’t the aliens. I spoke to one of the blokes and everything,” she says. “God’s truth on it.”

“How can they not be aliens if they’ve got those giant wings?” Harold asks.

“Well, the ginger bloke I spoke to was very specific about saying that they’re not extraterrestrial, they’re _extra-dimensional,_” Jenn explains. “I mean, he was really wanting to make certain I understood it: not alien.”

Bessie slowly frowns. “What’s the difference, dearie?”

Jenn shrugs. “The first one’s from space, the second one’s from another dimension, I guess?”

“Good enough for me,” Harold decides, but now both of the old types are frowning.

Bessie goes after the elephant in the room first. “Are you traveling alone, dearie?”

“Er…kinda, yeah. My parents both have night jobs outside Central London. They’ll catch up to me eventually, or I’ll just off an’ look for them after we get wherever we’re going. Something like that, I guess.”

Harold and Bessie exchange looks. “Our grandchildren are all off living in Leeds with our son’s wife, and our daughter is off with _her_ adopted lot and wife down in Cornwall. Our other boy isn’t married, but they’re both British Army, so I think they might be about somewhere. Either way, means it’s just us. It’s an awfully lonely way to travel,” Bessie tells Jenn, adding in a sad sigh.

“Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if we had the grandkids with us,” Harold says. “Wouldn’t be so lonely, then.”

Jenn glances at them both. She knows she’s being played, but they’re being nice about it…and it _is_ better than traveling alone except for a kitten. “All right. I’m Jenn, I’m enby but today I’m a girl, and I’m fine with being a temporary granddaughter if you’re fine with me.”

“Oh, enby! I know that term. Tessie introduced us to it,” Bessie gushes. “It’s for non-binary, right? The letters NB.”

Harold is nodding. “Yeah, that’s what Tessie said. Terms like that should’a been around about when my brother was young. He could have used that, I think. They’d have labeled him mentally ill for doin’ it, but then he would’a been home and wouldn’t have died in the war.”

Bessie pats his arm. “James was a good lad, Harold. Didn’t matter a wit if he had better dresses than I did.”

“It’s been near on eighty years, and you’re _still_ jealous.”

Jenn smiles. Okay, this could work. “James sounds like he would’ve been fun. Enby’s easier than trying to make up your mind on one or the other, anyway.” Then she does the math. “Eighty years, and you’re talking ’bout World War II. How old are you guys?”

Bessie beams at her. “Ninety-five tomorrow, lass.”

“Ninety-six, m’self,” Harold admits with a mumble.

“Wow. You guys are doing great,” Jenn says, and she means it. “How old are your kids if they’re still military?”

“Getting up near retirement age, really. They were all late babies,” Bessie says proudly. “It was an awful dangerous thing to do back in those days, waiting so late to have children, but Harold and I wanted to have a nice life waiting for a baby afore we had them. I was forty, forty-two, and forty-four. Then my plumbing gave out on me, but I had my three, and we were happy.”

“James was born in ’65, so that makes him fifty-five this year,” Harold adds, puffing up a bit. “Charles was born in ’67, and he’s fifty-three already. Our youngest, Susan, she was born in ’69, turns 51 this autumn.”

“Oh!” Bessie grins, revealing slightly yellowed dentures. “We’re going to be great-grandparents from James’s eldest, Devon, around about Christmas time!”

“Cool,” Jenn says, impressed. She can’t imagine living long enough to have grandchildren, let alone great-grandchildren. “How’d you guys meet?”

Since that is one of Bessie’s favorite stories, Jenn gets to hear all of it. It sounds like a romance novel, them meeting during the Blitz, or maybe good fanfic.

Harold blushes the _entire time_. It’s so bleedin’ cute.


	29. Greater London

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a lot of planning happens, conversations are had, and Aziraphale admits he never believed Crowley about MI5 during World War II.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Realized belatedly that I was using the wrong acronym for MAG. (It’s not MEG.) Sorry ’bout that.]
> 
> Also, cheer-read by @norcumii!

Donna glances around at the crowd of people trying to exist in one tent at the same time around a central projection unit and rolls her eyes with professional disdain. There is no one here with a brain in their heads, or they’d have a better sense of organization.

“Dare you to tell them that,” Crowley says, standing next to her with a faint smirk on his face.

“What, you think they’ll even bother to listen?”

Crowley sniffs and adjusts his sunglasses, which he’d snapped into existence after realizing the last pair was partially melted. “If they don’t listen, just start slapping them.”

Donna narrows her eyes. Challenge bloody well accepted. “Miracle me up something to stand on, sunshine. Not something that’ll break if I step on it, either.”

“You’re no fun.” Crowley’s expression pulls up on one side, something almost resembling plotting, before he snaps his fingers. The shipping crate that results is just the right height to put Donna about a head-and-a-half above even the tallest bloke in the room. “Have at it. The faster this shit’s over with, the faster we’ll be saving people. I’m really not in the mood to watch these idiots standing about, trying to measure each other’s cocks.”

“I really wanna say something about that being a bit rude, but…I can’t,” Not-Jane says through the private channel on their ear-pieces. Donna hasn’t asked yet how Crowley made it through hellfire with his clothes, mobile, and ear-piece in decent shape, but still lost his ruddy sunglasses. “It’s accurate, and Crowley’s right,” Not-Jane continues. “I mean, unless this gets whittled down, we’re going at it for hours.”

“Oh, we are absolutely _not_,” Donna retorts. Crowley holds out his hand, which Donna grabs just long enough to clamber up onto the shipping crate. Then she takes a deep breath, shakes out her fingers, and remembers that there are far more frightening things in this universe than the British government.

“OI, YOU LOT! STAND TO!” Donna yells. It’s a bit gratifying to see half of the military types immediately come to attention like they’ve been yanked upright on strings. “LISTEN UP, YOU SODDING MORONS, BECAUSE I AM OUT OF BLEEDIN’ PATIENCE.”

“I love you, Donna,” Not-Jane murmurs in amusement. Spaceman, standing on the other side of the room, looks like he’s trying desperately not to laugh. The younger Doctor right next to him already gave up on it and is grinning fit to crack his teeth.

“Excuse me—who _are_ you?” a rather pointy-nosed suit asks her. Donna is pretty sure that’s a Director General, but she doesn’t much care which one.

“I’m Donna Noble. I’ve literally saved all your lives at least twice, I’m one of the smartest people on this planet, probably still listed as a resource for Torchwood and UNIT, and oh, yes, one of the best temps in Chiswick. None of you act like you’ve got the brains you were _maybe_ born with, considering this complete disaster you’ve assembled and dubbed a meeting!”

Pointy-Nose’s eye is twitching. “And what would _you_ change, Madam Temp?”

“First off, anyone beyond the first row can’t hear a sodding thing, so you lot wagging your tongues up front are just gonna be repeatin’ yourselves over and over at this rate,” Donna retorts, glaring down at him before deciding everyone else should share in the experience. She has a pretty decent glare; had to develop one just to deal with Mum. “There are too many people in this tent, none of you have bothered to find out who should actually be standing here, and the lot of you seem to have forgotten that we’ve all got mobiles, or—worst case, bleedin’ pens and paper! If this is how you lot run a government, it’s no wonder we’re so fucked right now.”

“I beg your pardon—!”

“How _dare_ you—!”

“The nerve of some lowborn rubbish, speaking that way to their betters!”

Donna doesn’t know who that one is, since can’t see them, but she can hear Jack just fine. “I for one _really_ want to hear what Donna has in mind to fix this mess,” he says gleefully, “because she’s right, it’s a mess. Donna’s right about the Torchwood retainer, too. Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart?”

“Oh, the same applies under UNIT as well, Captain Harkness,” a woman replies smoothly. She’s up on one of the satellite feeds hanging above everyone. Blonde, no-nonsense, and definitely military but without the pretentiousness. Donna likes her already. “As do most companions of the Doctor.”

That sets them off in loud muttering intermixed with yelling. Donna resists the urge to roll her eyes, especially when she hears one of the things being said. “Really? You’ve done such a bad job at this that you didn’t even know the Doctor’s standing in this stupid tent? Good job, you. Gold stars all ’round. That sort of nonsense is _exactly_ what I’m talking about!”

There is a civil-sounding bloke, possibly an older gent, who speaks up from the center of the room. “I am interested in Mrs. Noble’s suggestions, as well.”

“It’s Ms. Noble, actually. Recently widowed,” Donna corrects him. She didn’t see much point in calling herself a Missus anymore, not without a husband to go along with the title. Mum would’ve hated that. “If you’re one of the higher-ups in charge, then get rid of everyone who doesn’t absolutely need to be here. You’ve _all_ got subordinates who need to hear anything plotted out right from the start, but they don’t have to do it while standing in this ridiculous tent! Satellite feeds, encrypted mobiles on speaker, a bloody encrypted signal to hand-held devices just for them! Anything is better than making all of us bleedin’ claustrophobic.”

Donna glares about when the noise starts to ramp again. “Shut it, I wasn’t done! You lot get one official representative from the important government branches apiece—not every type, don’t even try it, there are too many of you. Each of you officials gets yourself one admin apiece so they can take notes, make sure you don’t forget anything you agreed to. Everyone else needs to _bugger. Off._” She pauses for a moment. “What’d I just go an’ say? _OUT!_”

“You heard Ms. Noble,” the civil-sounding gent says. “ESCG, SCG—if they’ve arrived—each current head of our respective military branches, Strategic Command, UNIT, Torchwood London, Torchwood Cardiff, London Resilience Group, MEG, the Surgeon Vice-Admirals and Surgeon-General, the Director General from Civil Service, and the Doctor. Nat out of Redhill, please remain on-comm; Sheffield, please do the same. I’d like at least one of the, er, Celestials to remain as well, given their invaluable assistance so far this morning. Secretary Cooper and myself will round things out nicely, unless someone has bloody well gotten the Home Secretary on-site yet?”

“No go, sir; we’re still looking. All we can say for certain is that the Home Secretary is _not_ in Central London. In the meantime, we’ve most of the field agents and officers from MI5 already standing by, ready to take orders from the CDS and the DS in the meantime, sir,” a woman answers. Donna lets out an annoyed sigh. Standing on a box, and still she can’t see everyone. “MI6 has volunteer operatives who are currently on British soil, in London, who are also standing by to assist.”

“The Permanent Secretary has already given them a green light for both agencies, given that the Foreign Secretary is out of country right now,” the current Defence Secretary says. Conner? Cooper? Whatever his name is, the bloke’s got a distinctive voice.

“And Vice-Admiral Saxon is already leading the elements of the evacuation outside London. That leaves twenty-seven of us then, once someone locates the Home Secretary.” The crowd shifts enough for Donna to finally get a gander at Mister Sensible, who looks more like he’s Mister Military Sensible. Probably the CDS; she doesn’t know much about him. “Given that two of us are currently MIA and seven of you are speaking to us by uplink, I believe that will do. Eighteen is a far more reasonable number. Thank you, Ms. Noble.”

Donna jumps down from the shipping crate. Crowley makes it disappear by kicking at it. “I knew I liked you,” he says.

“Watch it, sunshine,” Donna responds. “You’re not my type.”

Crowley turns his head, looking at her through his glasses. “I’m not polyamorous. Also, I really don’t want Aziraphale to kill me. Been through that experience at least a dozen times, and it’s no fun at all.”

Donna opens her mouth to say she doesn’t want to know, but that would be a complete lie. “I wanna hear that story later.”

“It’s really depressing.”

“Can’t be that bad. You’re dating each other now,” Donna points out. Crowley tongues at one of his sharp incisors and then nods to concede the point.

“Did I hear you snap your fingers while I was up on that box?” she asks while watching the rabble start to clear out. Half of them look relieved; half of them look resentful. Idiots.

“Yep.”

Donna glances at him. “What for?”

Crowley tilts his head down so she can see his eyes over the tops of his glasses. “Not that much fond of people who insult my friends. Think it was the _low-born rubbish_ comment that really cinched it.”

Donna feels a rather warm sensation. That was an official declaration, and she’s not had many friends over her life who were the sort to stick around like the supportive mates they claimed to be. “What’d you do to them?”

“It won’t kick in until after the evacuation is over with, and people are safe.” Crowley nudges his glasses back into place and smiles. “Of course, then he’s going to come down with a rather sudden case of food poisoning, accompanied by a desperate need for the loo, at the absolute worst possible moment.”

“Crowley. Dear.” Through the comm, Aziraphale sounds long-suffering, but given the way that Crowley’s smile widens, Donna suspects it’s all for show. “Did you really have to?”

“Nah. But I _really_ wanted to.”

It takes nearly fifteen minutes for Britain’s finest to sort themselves out. Donna personally considers strangling several of them just to hurry things along. It does _not_ take that long to set up secured comms, mobiles, uplinks, or whatever they decide on.

Finally, they’re left with that nice reasonable number of warm bodies instead of too many idiots to count. The claimed admins jump the numbers up a bit, not including the people phoning it in, but that’s not near as bad as it was before. UNIT’s newly restored Brigadier is present by satellite, but Magambo from Central London’s evac stayed to play admin. Jack has Ianto by satellite feed; Martha, and Mickey are playing lead and admin for each other, though Tish is listening in via Martha’s mobile.

The Chief of Defence Staff gets properly introduced as Sir Hughes, which is nice; she’s less enthused about learning that the Defence Secretary’s name is actually Cooper. They’re sharing an admin, a young woman in army fatigues who’s smart enough to be taking notes while also running a little pocket recorder as a backup. Donna thinks it’s a good choice. She likes the new ones that use micro SD cards instead of a bloody tape.

The rest of the uniforms are Admiral Bolling, First Sea Lord & Chief of the Naval Staff, General Mayfield, Chief of the General Staff, Chief Marshal Collins, Chief of the Air Staff, and the bloke running Strategic Command for the UK, though Donna missed his name. She’s not much fussed; she suspect he won’t be involved in most of what they’re doing inside the city. Crowley pays more attention to the surgeon types, Vice Admiral Tillington, Lt. General Adams, and Air Marshal Sutton.

The younger Doctor and Spaceman are still present, though Spaceman looks a bit uncomfortable, given that his face is the one all of the government types are familiar with. Spaceman claimed Rose as his admin, so Crowley shrugged and claimed Donna as his so she wouldn’t have to leave. Rose looks as if she finds the entire idea amusing, but Donna caught a glimpse of her digital pad; her shorthand is spot-on, even if it’s not in English.

Director General Holland stayed to represent everyone in Civil Service. Donna thinks that one might be another likable sort, given how visibly ready she is for things to _happen_ already. That cleared out the rest of the flotsam the PM’s cabinet tried to cram into the tent.

Pointy Nose is _not_ involved. Sometimes the small victories really are the best sort.

Nat of Redhill, their actually legal immigrant resident alien, thank you, is representing himself without an admin. “I can bloody well type,” is his excuse, but mostly he sounds like he doesn’t want to get anyone else from his lot involved with the higher-ups.

The bloke from ESCG, Nik Patel, looks entirely panicked. He’s stuck representing ESCG, SCG, and after London Resilience and the MEG representatives discussed it, those groups as well. They’re listening in, but he’s still the man everyone’s looking at. Not-Jane volunteers to be Patel’s admin for him for all four groups, _because she is that bored, please let me do the thing_. Patel already looks like he hasn’t slept in three days already, and is definitely too relieved to protest. No one knows how the eldest Doctor added video to her satellite feed, and no one is asking. It just seems safer that way.

“Oh, God, that’s right. There are three of you at the moment, aren’t there?” the Brigadier asks the Doctor, finally addressing the rather obvious elephant in the room. “_Again_.”

Spaceman rubs the back of his neck with one hand. “Yeaaaah, sort of, maybe, yes.”

“Good Lord. What’s a female version of you like?”

“Oi, rude, Kate!” Not-Jane protests. “I’m basically the same but with better impulse control and stickier fingers—oooh, you brought me chocolate biscuits. You are now my favorite person, Graham.”

“So ’bout like usual, then.” Donna doesn’t recognize the bloke, but Graham sounds like he’s used to dealing with the Doctor.

The Brigadier might be biting her lip. “And as easily distracted?”

“Still hearing everything you’re saying!” Not-Jane interjects through a mouthful of biscuit. Donna sighs; some things definitely don’t change with a regeneration.

Magambo is the one who eyes Crowley and Donna, who are still stuck with Gabriel and Lucy. “One representative and one admin, I believe were the terms Ms. Noble insisted upon?”

“Sorry. It’s bloody politics,” Crowley explains. “Gabriel here represents the Celestials, Lucy represents the Fallen Celestials, and I’m neutral by default. You’re stuck with all three of us. No, you won’t get rid of either of them without possibly starting a war, and also this planet is my responsibility, so you’re stuck with me, anyway.”

Donna bites hard on her tongue as several sets of eyes begin to drift to Spaceman, who is trying to pretend he hasn’t noticed. “Uhm…Doctor,” the Brigadier says after clearing her throat. “You have a ginger doppelganger who has yet to give us his name.”

Crowley clicks his tongue. “Oh! Sorry, that’s my fault. Anthony J. Crowley, and the J doesn’t stand for anything, so don’t ask.”

Sir Hughes suddenly gets a very bizarre expression on his face. “Mister Crowley is staying, and I’ll accept his word regarding the politics of the, er, Celestial situation. We need someone who is formally MI5 on site until the Home Secretary is located.”

“Oi, no, I told your lot to go fuck off—” Crowley pauses and stares at Sir Hughes. “Wait, how’d you know about that?”

Sir Hughes is now being looked at by the Brigadier, who is very good at the Disappointed Mum Look. “We’ve met. Several times,” Sir Hughes states. “He was MI5 during World War II. Mister Crowley and my father had a professional agreement.”

Crowley frowns, flicks his tongue out the corner of his mouth, and then his expression lights up. “OH! Hughes! Right, yeah! Are you Jimmy, Charlie, or Susie?”

Sir Hughes rolls his eyes. “My sister did not get a sex change!” he snaps. “Sir James Hughes, Mister Crowley.”

“Eldest, then. How’re your parents?” Crowley asks, and then frowns. “Are they still alive? I sort of lost count.”

“My parents are well, thank you,” Sir Hughes replies. “I’ve always assumed it was your fault that they’ve remained hale well into their nineties.”

Crowley manages to look proper demonically shifty. Donna has to bite her tongue so she doesn’t laugh. “Mayyybe. Besides, your dad did me a favor. Do you have any idea how hard it is to quit MI5?”

Lucy glares at Crowley. “Is that why you couldn’t abandon that task once it was complete?”

“I faked my death _four fucking times_,” Crowley says flatly. “Four! They finally let me quit after the Berlin Wall fell, if only because me not aging was making people nervous. Jimmy’s dad over there pushed for retirement instead of dissection, which, done that once before, never doing it again.”

“It was the last piece of paper my father signed before retiring from service.” Sir Hughes looks like a shark when he smiles. That’s probably why the Defence Secretary is deferring to him instead of the other way around. Or maybe it’s because the Secretary has had his job for less than a year, and doesn’t really know how to cope with aliens and alien invasions. “Mister Crowley, I’m temporarily reinstating you for the duration of this emergency.”

Crowley scowls at Hughes. “You utter wanker. You definitely took after your mother.”

Not-Jane is cackling, but at least without a biscuit in the way. “You deserved that, Dad!”

“I did _not_,” Crowley hisses. “Their definition of _thisss emergency_ isss ssso flexible I might have to deal with thisss ssshit for the ressst of the century!”

“Thank you for answering my question, Doctor.” The Brigadier is radiating smugness; Spaceman looks completely mortified, which is hilarious.

“You’re welcome!” Not-Jane declares in sing-song voice.

That finally seems to give Nat in Redhill something to say. “You don’t bloody age?” Then, after a brief pause, “_and_ you’re the Doctor’s dad?”

“Can we please, please, _please_ move this along?” Spaceman whinges.

“Why would an alien have any interest in MI5?” one of the military types asks. Donna would like it very much if the British military would get behind the idea of wearing bloody nametags.

“Excuse me; I am very much _not_ an alien,” Gabriel retorts.

“Extra-dimensional, not extra-terrestrial.” Crowley is starting to sound as if he is utterly done with pointing out the distinction. “MI5 was a job that let me do something I’m really fond of, and that is getting rid of Nazis. I really hate Nazis. Isn’t that a good enough reason?”

Military Bloke tries to come up with words that aren’t sputtering. “Er—well—”

“Besides, I’ve lived on thisss planet for over sssix thousand years, and in England for the last four hundred, ssso at thisss point I’m bloody well a naturalized citizen, thank you.”

“Is that a speech impediment?” the admin for the RAF’s Surgeon Vice-Admiral asks Crowley, wide-eyed and visibly apologetic. “Sorry, I just need to know for my notes if I should be, y’know, translating that directly.”

“Speech impediment.” Crowley’s sigh sounds more like a frustrated growl. “Sssure. Clossse enough. Look: I don’t age because I don’t feel like it, and I’ve known about the Doctor for about a day, ssso don’t expect profound revelations or anything on that front.”

Nat lets out a long whistle. “Nah, I can leave off with that. I just always wanted to know what a Celestial is actually like. Heard the rumors, like, but never met one.”

“Why are you wearing sunglasses in this tent?” Patel wants to know. Spaceman stares up at the ceiling in profound resignation. Donna is so right there. The younger Doctor is looking away from them all, huge, shit-stirring smile on his face. Such a brat, that one. “I feel half-blind in here as it is!” Patel exclaims.

“Eye condition,” Sir Hughes and Crowley answer at the same time. “Mister Crowley is medically documented as being extremely photophobic,” Sir Hughes adds.

Donna watches as Crowley blinks hard a few times before removing his glasses and squinting at the others. He’s swapped his eyes over to the same color of icy blue as Israfil’s. “I already have a headache. Let’s leave off with the twenty questions, definitely skip the ones on how our species mates—” Gabriel makes another choked, outraged sound “—and get on with things, yeah?”

Director Holland looks a bit chagrined. “Certainly, yes. Uh, did you happen to have a rank within MI5 that should be used from this point forward, Mister Crowley?”

Crowley slides his glasses back on. “Dunno. Never actually paid attention to that sort of thing. Just did the job and tried not to die.”

“But I’m the one who just found your service record,” Not-Jane says cheerfully. “That’s quite a list.”

Crowley frowns. “Please stop reading that.”

“Doctor, please stop hacking into secured systems within the intelligence offices!” the Brigadier snaps.

“Bah, that was not hacking. It wasn’t difficult enough. Besides, it’s interesting!” Not-Jane argues. “Oh, wow, wartime transfer to MI6 for Nazi Germany infiltration, that must’ve been fun. Terrible, actually, but River did try to kill Hitler and then her father stuffed him in a cupboard…”

“Jane.” When Donna glances over, she finds Crowley clenching his fists at his sides. “Please. Stop. Reading. That.”

“Why—oh. Oh. Oh, oh, oh. Uhm. I’m…going to skip to the transfer back into MI5’s lovely tender graces, yeah?”

“No, we’re going to actually have this stupid fucking meeting so we can clear out the rest of London before the Racnoss figure out how to get past the first flaming quarantine line!” Crowley retorts. “As of yesterday would be bloody nice!”

“Yes, it very much would,” DS Cooper agrees tersely.

“Sir Hughes, currently my dad would be classed as D-Branch, Intelligence Management for domestic counter-espionage and data analysis, and sitting under the Deputy Director General’s command. Wherever the DDG is right now, anyway.”

“Out of the country, unfortunately,” the Director General says. “A trend that is quickly becoming an inconvenient relief.”

“Oh. Bad timing, that. Huh, keep forgetting that espionage and analysis are two different jobs now,” Not-Jane natters on. “Course, during World War II, everyone was doing both of those and maybe two other jobs on top of that, so it was a bit of a madhouse. Winston thought it was brilliant madness though, and he was right. Hey, domestic undercover surveillance is in this service record! Greta’s pretty. I mean, evil, definitely, but pretty—I really do have a type,” Not-Jane says with a sudden despairing wail. Rose clamps her hand over her mouth and turns around, half-bent over, shoulders shaking as she tries to laugh in silence.

Spaceman meets Donna’s eyes. _This might actually be the most embarrassing day of my life._

_Just today?_ Donna asks. _I could name at least eighteen other days—_

_Just…don’t. Ever. No._

Sir Hughes glances up at Not-Jane’s screen. “Mister Crowley had that much backing before his retirement?”

“Sort of. Mostly it’s that this is the only way to properly translate it all, considering how much MI5’s structure has changed,” Not-Jane says. “Ooooh, you met Christopher Lee in the field! I’m so envious right now, you’ve no idea.”

Donna glances over at Crowley. He’s actively grinding his teeth, looking murderous. “I have no idea what anyone in Intelligence _Management_ does. It sounds like a rubbish title for a desk job.” Lucy smirks a bit; Gabriel just seems baffled by the entire conversation.

“Intelligence Management ranking means I can order people to listen to you, and you have the clout for it to stick, Mister Crowley,” Sir Hughes explains. “Which is exactly what I need right now, given that I need more men on the ground than the entire _three_ command-level operatives I have right now.”

Crowley ponders the idea for a moment and then sniffs. “MI5’s lot already know how to do their bloody jobs, but if you’re giving me permission to kidnap a bunch of efficient humans to make things happen faster, then gimme.”

“Please return them when the need for the kidnapping is over,” Sir Hughes returns dryly. “Now, we only have twenty-five individuals to front the evacuation at the moment—”

“Twenty-three,” Lucy corrects in a mild voice. “Gabriel and I have discussed it and are agreeing to defer to Crowley in order to simplify matters, especially our…politics.”

“And they won’t strangle each other in the meantime, so that’s progress,” Crowley says.

Sir Hughes looks frustrated, but nods. “Very well. Twenty-three. I suppose too many cooks ruin the banquet, anyway, and I’ve certainly had worse options during complex operations.”

Director Holland lets out a brief cough. “Now that all matters of curiosity are settled, I don’t foresee any problems in proceeding with the review of Greater London’s evacuation.”

“For the stated record, I am deferring to CDS Sir James Hughes for this particular emergency,” DS Cooper announces. “He has the experience and logistical knowledge to react in the best possible fashion to…well, to planet-eating spiders invading London.”

“Thank you, Secretary,” Sir Hughes says. “We begin right now. I want an update on Central London’s Underground.”

“All the tunnels are blocked by rubble after the demolitions teams were through. Every conceivable route large enough to fit a Racnoss is blocked,” Martha says.

“And then someone went and turned everyone below street level into silicon carbide, so no Racnoss is going to tunnel their way into Greater London.” Spaceman looks at Crowley. “But that’s the thing. It’s just the tunneling.”

“Yeah.” Crowley crosses his arms and taps his fingers on his jacket sleeve, which still reeks of rank fire.

Mickey sighs. “The Racnoss can’t dig through silicon carbide, but they can _move_ it. Couldn’t you have fused the lot of it while you were at it?” he asks. Crowley manages to convey a sarcastic eye-roll with his entire body.

“Every pile of rubble from the tunnel demolitions is a potential point of entry,” the Brigadier realizes. “Oh, God.”

“Should any of us even ask how the ground beneath Central London was transformed into silicon carbide?” General Mayfield asks.

“Depends on if you want the short answer, the long answer, or the bullshit answer,” Crowley replies.

“Short is fine,” the General decides.

Crowley gives the man a wide smile that’s borderline snide. “Because I wanted it to.”

“Right then,” Magambo says before General Mayfield can stutter out more questions. “How long until the Racnoss conceivably work their way through one of the demolition zones?”

Crowley looks at Donna, Spaceman, Lucy, Rose, and Gabriel before glancing up at the satellite feeds for the Brigadier and Not-Jane. “No idea. They could figure it out a minute from now, or maybe sometime next week.”

“They are _not_ stupid,” Lucy says. “And they’re…hungry.”

“Assume the worst, then. Got it.” Patel scrubs at his hair, which is already sticking up at unfortunate angles. “You couldn’t have maybe turned Central London’s Underground into an impenetrable material before the Racnoss arrived?”

“Oh, that’d be fucking brilliant,” Crowley says. “Except the opposite.”

Magambo nods in immediate agreement. “Redirecting the Racnoss away from Central London would be to place them _outside_ of London’s boundaries, and beyond the M25, there are no truly useful quarantine zones.”

“Unless you consider the quarantine zone to be the whole of the British Isles,” one of the two British Navy admiral-types says grimly.

“If they weren’t currently trapped in Central London, the Racnoss would be all over Britain by sundown today, and the UK wouldn’t exactly have a population anymore,” Jack says.

“Even if it had been a good idea, I’m gonna remind you all that until the very last minute, the Racnoss were actually traveling toward us _using a different dimension_,” Crowley drawls. “But y’know, go off. You’re welcome, anyway.”

“London is prepared for evacuation in a way few other places in the UK are,” Ianto adds. “I’d rather deal with the battleground that’s easy to fence off, myself.”

“Are the Racnoss spider…_things_…really as bad as we’re being informed?” Donna doesn’t recognize the voice, and they’re someone who didn’t warrant a satellite feed, just a radio.

“Yes,” Spaceman says in a flat, uncompromising voice.

“Best example I have: my people once found a Racnoss infestation too late to stop it. At that point…” Crowley glances at Lucy, who looks angry enough to be pulling off the burning eye trick in front of the normal lot if she’s not careful. “We didn’t have a choice. The only way to quarantine the infestation was to let them eat an entire galaxy, because it meant they ate themselves to death—and yeah, it was a populated galaxy. Trillions of people died. I’m still glad that wasn’t my decision, because I have enough nightmares as it is. Still think the Racnoss aren’t so bad?”

The voice, when they speak again, is rather subdued. “No. Please continue with the debrief.”

“There are guards with spotlights in every Underground tunnel. Until we have the enemy at the doorstep, we continue to use the tube to evacuate Greater London,” Patel says. “I’ll let the Rail Delivery Group know they’re still to keep an eye out for the spider-centaur types.”

Sir Hughes looks up at the feed for one of the two generals. “I want those tunnel squads swapped out every hour. No one has the chance to get tired. No one slips. Understood?”

“Sir, yes, sir,” the balding general nods. “We’ve almost got the civilian routes fully marked on all four sides of London, as well. That’ll keep civvie traffic away from Transport’s roadways.”

“Heathrow won’t have trouble loading passengers,” the RAF bloke says. “It’s finding a place for those planes to land that’s difficult.”

“Of course. Inverness, Cardiff, and Belfast can only host so many bloody planes,” Sir Hughes replies.

“I’m on it,” Ianto offers. “I’m very persuasive. If being Welsh and polite doesn’t work, Torchwood’s teams are already queued to _make_ them cooperate, sir.”

Sir Hughes raises an eyebrow. “Don’t start a war, and I won’t give a damn, Mister Jones. Mister Patel, if you please.”

Patel sighs and scruffs his hair back down, which is almost worse. “All right. SCG’s head _is_ inbound, but in the meantime, I’m covering four groups. SCG’s people are already at the evacuation sites, setting up the necessary camps and equipment. They’ve got a handle on it for now, but if someone turns up and demands to know where I am, goes by the name of Caroline Graves, looks like Margaret Thatcher having a day at the races, that’s SCG. Don’t let the resemblance fool you; Graves is good at what she does. I’ll leave contact information with everyone so she can be put in touch with her teams, and that will be one less thing contributing to my impending heart failure.

“Moving right along. We knew the moment the rest of you started clearing Central London that Greater London would be a larger operation with far greater difficulty, so we started immediately. Concentrating on the evacuees coming out of Central London means that most of those groups are already on their way out of the city. Care homes and hospitals were prioritized along with that first group of evacuees. They’ll take the most time to empty, and require careful handling, besides.

“All told, that leaves us with a much more manageable count of eight point eight million people to evacuate.” Patel draws in a deep breath. “Based on the evacuation time for Central London, plus our additional use of the tube and Heathrow, it’s entirely plausible that we could empty Greater London by 06:00 Sunday. However, I still say that thirty hours is the more accurate number, and that puts us at noon.”

“Aim for twenty-four hours, regardless,” Sir Hughes instructs them all. “We don’t have time to ship in enough firepower to keep the tunnels clear of the Racnoss if they break through before noon tomorrow.”

“Last thing from me, and then everyone gets a handy information packet and maps of every designated evacuation zone for Greater London,” Patel says. “That trick the Doctor pulled with the three exit points for Central London. Can it be repeated?”

Spaceman shares a look with Donna before glancing at Rose. “Course it can.”

“Okay.” Patel looks a bit less like he’s ready for that impending heart failure. “I assumed the same distance ratios were possible. I need one of you parked at Gallows Corner that will pop everyone over to Great Warley. From there, it’s relocation to Brentwood’s new EEC shelter and all available Short-Term Shelters. Another one needs to be in Enfield leading over to Waltham Cross; that lot will be going to St. Albans. The third crossover is West Drayton over to Langley. Then everyone is off to Slough. Did I get the distances right?”

Rose smiles at Patel. “Yeah. That’s perfect, mate.” Patel smiles back at her, looking about ready to collapse on the floor in relief.

It doesn’t take long for Donna to realize that she’s lucked out. She’s got claim on a TARDIS, and needs to be at her controls to make certain that crossover point in Enfield stays put. The youngest Doctor and Rose claim the same after Spaceman insists on trading off. Everyone else suddenly has a job to do, and people to lead, in one of the least ideal situations Donna’s ever stared down aside from Daleks stealing the bloody planet.

* * * *

The moment they escape that bloody stifling tent, Not-Jane is all but singing in their ears. “All right, chop chop, group chat, just our private little channel, and no one else listening in. Except Graham. And Wilf. Never mind, that’s Ryan and Yas involved now, too. But no one else!”

“Nice to, er, meet everyone else. Whoever you are,” Aziraphale says politely, glancing at Donna. She shrugs; she hasn’t got a clue who the other three are, either.

“Yasmin Khan. I’m with Hallamshire Police. In training. Still.”

“Ryan Sinclair, went to primary school with Yas here. I’m sort of a mechanic. Graham is my step-grandad, but I usually don’t bother with the step part.”

“Graham O’Brien, retired from Sheffield transit, cancer survivor, current guinea pig for the Doctor, and not much to do at the moment but stick my nose into things. Also, you’re better than a sort-of-mechanic, you fixed a bloody alien boat, so knock off with that. Basically, we want to help, but we’re stuck doing it from up here, so ideas are welcome.”

“Guinea pig? Honestly, Graham! D’ya know how fragile those things are?” Not-Jane asks indignantly.

“Oh, God, I’ve gone so domestic. It’s painful,” Young Bloke Doctor whinges.

Rose nudges him in the ribs with her elbow. “You love it, too, so shut up. Why the mostly secret group chat?”

“Because not-Jane’s already figured out why Patel back there has been panicking since early this morning,” Crowley says. “London Resilience designed the city’s escape plans around tidal surges and terrorism incidents, not alien invasions. ESCG knows that for something like this, everyone would already need to be standing by, ready to do the work before everything went tits up, not scrambling to put it together afterwards.”

“They call it a Sudden Impact event,” Spaceman explains. “The fact that all the groups involved are already cooperating is a…” He pulls a face. “A miracle.”

“It’s called nudging reality into a new alignment for best results, thank you,” Crowley mutters. “This is like trying to evacuate Pompeii after the volcano’s already erupted.” He turns around and looks at Gabriel. “We need help.”

“I know,” Gabriel admits, which is so shocking that even Saraquel gapes at him. “The humans are already suspicious that Celestial and angel are synonymous, Crowley.”

“Wait, are they really?” Yasmin asks.

Crowley stares at Gabriel. “Sort of, yeah, but shut up though, I’m having a moment because my brother just agreed with me.”

“I’m not that bad!” Gabriel protests.

“You really, _really_ are,” Israfil says. “Brother, you’re the one who suddenly has his hands in MI5. Again, which, thank you _so_ much for informing the rest of the class.”

Crowley scowls at Israfil. “Aziraphale knew!”

“Actually, I always thought you were…making it up.” Aziraphale winces when Crowley rounds on him like a kicked puppy. “Yes, well! It isn’t as if you’ve ever hidden your love of Ian Fleming, dear.”

“What—why the _hell_ would I have made that up?” Crowley asks in disbelief.

Aziraphale frowns. “You claimed to be Sir Fleming’s inspiration for James Bond!”

“But—you—the—” Crowley lets out a growl that makes Gabriel take a step away from him. “Yes, that’s right: well-dressed chap with exceptional luck who keeps getting out of situations that should most definitely have made him dead who also drives like a maniac. You’re absolutely right; that was some other bleedin’ idiot.”

“Okay, Doctor. Now I _really_ believe that’s your dad,” Ryan says.

“ARE YOU TELLING _EVERYONE?_”

Donna honestly isn’t sure if that was Crowley or Spaceman yelling just then. Not-Jane mumbles something about more biscuits and then says, “Not really, it’s just that they’re around all the time, and Wilf already knew, so, look, can we get back to the point now? Because the point is that Pompeii was buggered but London being invaded is _not_ my fault this time, and I’d very much like to keep it unexploded and everyone uneaten.”

Donna glances over at Martha and Mickey, who are both bearing wide grins. “Honestly, except for the part where we might all die, this is the funniest shit I’ve heard in years,” Mickey says.

“They do make quite a bit of noise,” Ba‘al observes dryly.

“Crowley. There are already those who have been…well, we haven’t exactly been hiding our flights from the humans,” Gabriel says. “We’re not on schedule for inspiring that sort of…well, inspiration.”

“So church attendance spikes for a few months after this is over with. So fucking what?” Crowley grits his teeth and stalks a few paces away, unbuttoning his coat to sling it over his shoulder. “Bloody climate change.” He draws in a deep breath and tilts his head. “I think Upstairs is already plotting to intervene, anyway. Time between us and them was already out of synch. Now it just feels _off_. Think they sped it up for them. Faster passage of time doesn’t exactly matter with our lot, not really.”

“Why would they do that?” Jack asks.

Saraquel answers him. “Because it takes time to put a corporation together, and Michael has a responsibility complex.”

“A big one. Huge,” Crowley adds.

“I simply can’t imagine where the rest of it picked up that terrible habit from,” Israfil drawls.

Crowley turns back around. “Shaddup, Raphael.” He ignores Yasmin’s delighted squeak. “Hey, when is the last time all seven of us were on this planet at the same time?”

For once, Gabriel’s expression isn’t something that came out of corporate America. “I’m not certain we ever have been.”

“Ah. Well, first time for everything, then.”

Saraquel pulls his clear glass mobile from his pocket and lights up the screen. “Let’s find out. At worst, we can snag Uriel and Raguel, and that’s nothing to…what’s the expression? Nothing to sneeze at?”

“Exactly right,” Aziraphale confirms.

“Hey, how’s my favorite sister? Also, don’t tell Uriel I said that,” Saraquel says into the mobile. Donna desperately wants to get a good look at it, because there is _no visible circuitry_ and the Doctor still managed to sonic Gabriel’s now-deceased mobile. She wants to know how the bloody thing works!

“Made it happen faster, huh? Yeah, baby brother was thinking so.” Saraquel pauses. “Wait, Michael went old school? What does that—wow, if we were trying to be subtle, we just failed so, so badly at it. Can he at least maybe tone it down on the glowing eyes bit? And the hair? And the everything?”

Saraquel frowns and covers the speaker of his mobile. “Is armor going to be weird?”

Aziraphale lets out an amused huff. “We’re already running around London with swords, knives, halberds, bows, and wings, Saraquel. I hardly think the armor is going to mean much at this juncture.”

“Tell Michael not to tone down any of it.”

Donna isn’t the only one to look at Crowley in surprise. “What happened to avoiding notice?” Spaceman asks. “Not that any of us are any good at that.”

“Even if the lot of them have themselves convinced by tomorrow evening that they must’ve imagined it, Michael is a big glowing bloody symbol of how things are going right, not how they went wrong.” Crowley slides his glasses off long enough to rub his eyes, which are purely gold, lacking the sclera. “I’m no good at hope. Not inspiring it, and definitely not spreading it. These people literally need miracles. Let’s give ’em a big shiny distracting one.”

“A distraction that allows us to pull off the rest of the miraculous right under their noses.” Lucy smiles in appreciation.

“Hold up, guys. Incoming,” Saraquel announces, and holds out his mobile.

A black woman with short, tightly curled hair emerges first, wearing a gold breastplate over leather armor that otherwise looks pretty similar to what Gabriel and Saraquel are wearing. She has gold eyes, gold dust powdered through her hair, and golden freckles. Donna would call it an overuse of a good body paint, but it’s like Crowley and Israfil’s carbon dust—it’s not paint. The second one to come through is also female, with olive skin and Asian features, pinned-up hair that looks silver, or blue, or purple, or… Donna blinks and gives up, because her hair keeps changing. Her eyes are silver, but otherwise look human.

Michael’s emergence explains what Saraquel meant by old school. He doesn’t emerge in the form of a woman (unless it’s hidden under the armor) but with the blunter features of a man. His hair and eyes are both gold, like his wings…and his armor.

Rose tilts her head. “I think I liked it better when it was battle-scuffed. Bit less intimidating. Bit less _blinding_, actually.”

Michael straightens up from his landing and brushes dust from his forearm, though Donna doesn’t think dust would dare to make the attempt. “When would you have seen such a thing?”

Rose blinks and her eyes are glowing gold. “Near the end of your war. Twice.”

“You are not entirely human,” Michael says in a thoughtful tone.

Rose blinks again and her eyes are normal. “Nah, I’m totally human. Ish.”

“Wolf Girl there saved Israfil’s staff from being eaten by hellfire,” Crowley explains. “Which, really, please don’t ask me to explain that, because it meant a new memory popped into my head, and it’s still bloody itchy.”

Israfil’s eyes widen. “Hellfire? That would have destroyed it completely. Thank you,” he says to Rose. Israfil inclines his head in a graceful, sinuous bow, suddenly a lot more mindful of how Crowley moves. “It would have been impossible to replace.”

Gabriel is clasping arms with Michael. “It’s good to see you this way again, brother.”

Michael smiles. “It finally felt as if the time was right. I knew you would be able to let her go.”

Gabriel’s expression falters before he rallies and plasters a firm mask over his face. “I did that several hours ago, yes.”

Donna wonders what _that_ story is about, but she isn’t stupid. It tells her that Michael was walking about in a body he hadn’t started with; the body belonged to someone else; Gabriel knew that someone else. She didn’t know Celestials could swap around their bodies like that, but Crowley does call them fabricated meat suits. That would make sense, especially if there was a meat suit lying about with no one to live in it anymore.

Bloody hell, that’s depressing.

Donna claps her hands. “Oi, you lot! I know I told Adam that we’re all easily distracted by shiny objects, but can we get to the point before we’re all spread across the whole of bloody London?”

“Also, who are the new people who just cropped up?” Ryan asks.

“Hold on.” Crowley pulls three copies of the ear-piece out of thin air and hands them to the new arrivals.

“Uh. Some of the comms just vanished from this box,” Graham says.

“Sorry, that was me teleporting a few down to London,” Crowley explains. “Everyone, this is Uriel. Sister, please say something; they need to hear your voice to know who the fuck they’re talking to for the rest of the day.”

The black woman gives Crowley a flat, unimpressed look. “Hello, _everyone_. I am Uriel, and I will be pleased to hear all of your names momentarily so that I will also know to whom I speak.”

“Works for me,” Yasmin pipes up.

“I’m Raguel,” the Asian-looking Celestial announces. “Am I dressed appropriately for this time period on Earth?”

Martha eyes Raguel’s Roman-looking silver gown in consideration. Donna judges it for pre-Empire styling, but not by much, and it’s _much_ nicer than anything she saw in Pompeii. “If you’re comfortable fighting in that, then I wouldn’t object, but you might be a bit distracting.”

“And it’s not the dress,” Rose says, pointing at her own hair. “You might want to pick a color and stick with it for now.”

“Oh.” Raguel frowns in concentration; her hair settles on bright silver. “My apologies; I tend to reflect the activity of Creation’s stars. Is this acceptable?”

“It’s fine, sister.” Crowley is staring at the scales she’s holding in one hand. “Do me a favor and weigh a soul?”

Raguel raises an eyebrow. “Already?”

“Yeah. Me, then Ba‘al.”

Michael rolls his eyes. “Crowley, what did you get into this time?”

“Why are you only blaming _me_? Ba‘al’s the one who made off with your sword and should have burnt stubs instead of hands,” Crowley retorts. Ba‘al rolls their eyes. “And I should probably be a crispy critter, but I didn’t want to be, and I’m not sure if it’s the not-wanting-to-be or…the other thing.”

“When did you experience hellfire again?” Michael asks, scowling at Crowley.

Crowley shrugs. “I had to get out of Central London somehow. Short version: Gabriel had the only mobile with a signal, and right after he left, a Racnoss stepped on it. So yeah, I flew through the hellfire quarantine. Landed in a pond. Bit singed, but otherwise fine.”

Donna is privately amused by how much new-Michael’s expressions are just like old-Michael’s expressions; means he’s still easy to read. “When this crisis is done, I am going to hear a longer explanation as to why you were trapped in Central London when such a thing should _not_ have happened,” Michael growls.

Raguel shakes her head and holds out her silver scales, which are delicate things that Donna adores…except for that soul-weighing concept. The Egyptians had opinions about that, and she doesn’t think she’d fare all that well against a feather.

“You are certainly more Celestial than Fallen,” Raguel says to Crowley when there is a definite dip in the left scale. “Congratulations; you are not a ‘crispy critter’ because you willed it so.”

“That’s awesome. That’s bloody _useful_.” Crowley tilts his head at Ba‘al, who is looking very much as if they would like to avoid the scales entirely. “Your turn.”

Raguel looks up in surprise after only a moment. “Your soul is in balance. The scales are not swaying from one side to another. This is perfect stability.”

“Which means what?” Ba‘al asks, their irritation as obvious as the fact that they’re using it to mask fear. _Poor dear,_ Donna thinks, even if she’s thinking it about a high-ranking demon.

Raguel pulls the Celestial’s little trick with pocket dimensions and disappears the scales. “I’ve no idea, actually. That is the sort of question to ask Father, but at a later time. We didn’t exactly finish with the introductions, did we?”

Michael looks baffled for a moment. “Ah; there are more people involved now. I see. I am Michael.”

“Mīkāl?” Yasmin repeats, sounding gleeful.

“Yes? That is one of the translations of my name,” Michael answers.

“Ten more quid, Ryan!”

“Oi, no! I didn’t agree to nothin’ else!”

“There are thirty-two bloody boroughs of London that have to be evacuated by six o’clock in the morning, can we _please_ get to work?” Not-Jane snaps. “I mean it this time. Thirty-two boroughs, but some of those were part of Central London. If we can clear out the rest of Southwark, Lambeth, Westminster, Tower Hamlets, Hackney, Islington, and Camden, that leaves us with twenty-five. We only have fifteen people who can be on site, not with youngest me, Rose, and Donna taking the TARDIS out to bridge those gaps over the M25. I wanted one of us each in a borough to oversee this, but we don’t have enough people even if I sent this lot down to help you.”

“The densest populations are going to need the most help. Add Kensington and Hammersmith to that list, and we’re up to nine prioritized boroughs,” Spaceman says. “Let the ESCG coordinate all of London while we focus on the trouble spots.”

“Some of us can, yeah.” Crowley flips through the thick booklet that Patel gave everyone and shuts it with a grimace of disgust. “Bloody tiny font. Wankers. A few of us need to be focused on other projects, and I ran it by Hughes before I left that bloody tent, so it’s too late, no take-backs.”

“You want me keeping an eye on the hospital evacuations,” Israfil guesses, and Crowley nods. “I thought you might. To be honest, I’ve wanted to be oversight for that from the moment I heard they were being evacuated. There’s too much that can go wrong.”

“Aziraphale.” Crowley clenches his jaw the moment Aziraphale narrows his eyes. “This isn’t me keeping you away from the chaos. This is me giving you your favorite sort of job.”

Aziraphale still gives Crowley a suspicious look. “Doing what, exactly?”

“We can’t empty the museums, but they can be secured. You’re going out with your own team, no bloody arguments. The security services already working in each museum and library can help you put them into lockdown. It isn’t perfect, but it should keep the Racnoss out. Definitely will help to keep any potential rioting idiots from setting things on fire.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale nods. “Yes. That is…absolutely, yes. I’m an archivist first. Consider it done, my dear.”

“Martha, Mickey, and I already have our jobs,” Jack says. “Torchwood is under ESCG authority when it comes to evacuating the city. I have no idea how many chances we’ll have to check in, but I say we try for once an hour, every single one of us. Even if it’s just to announce that we’re not dead.”

“So: eight Celestial types, nine high-density population zones. Still not ideal, is it?” Spaceman asks.

Crowley scowls, reaches out, and jabs Spaceman in the arm with his finger. “You’re _half-Celestial_, Time Lord. If anything right now was ideal, we wouldn’t be evacuating London, anyway.”

“Hey, Doc!” Donna catches sight of something brown flying through the air before Spaceman is catching it, wide-eyed and startled. “Save yourself the finger-snapping calluses,” Jack says, grinning.

Spaceman looks down at Jack’s wrist strap and its vortex manipulator. “Right, yeah. Thanks, Jack.”

“No problem. Rose, give me a ride? I’m due in Wandsworth.” Rose smiles and holds out her crooked arm; Jack takes it and the two of them head to the eldest Doctor’s TARDIS.

“Time to introduce you to your new best friends,” Crowley announces, right before he grabs Aziraphale’s hand and teleports them off somewhere. Israfil shrugs and disappears a moment later, but Donna imagines he knows exactly where to go.

“Give a girl a lift?” Martha asks Bloke Doctor.

He tilts his head, grins, and repeats the gesture Rose had done with the crooked arm escort. “Absolutely. Anything for a lovely lady future companion type. Especially a fellow doctor!”

Mickey rolls his eyes at the flirting. “Donna, I could use the same. Saves me a drive out to Newham.”

“Course I will, you know that,” Donna replies. “C’mon.”

“Good luck. All of you,” Not-Jane says, and then Donna is leading Mickey into Spaceman’s TARDIS.

* * * *

“I’m telling you, you owe me ten quid for the first bit!” Yasmin insists, grinning at Ryan.

“Look, that doesn’t necessarily mean anything!” Ryan protests, digging out his wallet. “Does it, Grandad?”

“Well—”

“Israfil is the most common Muslim term for Raphael,” Yasmin yanks the tenner from Ryan’s fingers. “Michael all but admitted it! Angels are extra-dimensional. That is so wicked.” She pauses. “Does that mean God’s extra-dimensional, too?”

The Doctor glances over her shoulder at them. “Oi, you lot. We literally stood inside the consciousness of _a separate universe_ from this one, and not in the usual fashion, either. Also we sort of accidentally got a demon killed, but Dad didn’t seem much fussed about it. This isn’t theology time, anyway!”

“Always theology time in my book.” Graham leans in close to the Doctor while Yas and Ryan are still arguing over the tenner. “They really are angels, aren’t they?”

Wilf nods enthusiastically before the Doctor can answer. “I got the impression that Celestial was a proper sort of term, though.”

“All right.” Graham looks at the Doctor, who has her face buried in her hands. “Leavin’ any of the religious bits aside…you’re the grandkid of a universal consciousness, Doc.”

The Doctor groans and thumps her head down on the desk hosting their radio equipment. “Stop bein’ evil for a bit and help me reconfigure London’s entire communications infrastructure. Everyone needs to be able to talk to each other proper.”

“Will do, yeah.” Graham gives it a moment. “Doc…it’s gonna be all right. We can do this.”

The Doctor glances up from using her sonic on one of the radios. Graham isn’t blind; he sees the fear and worry in her eyes before it’s replaced by a great deal of gratitude. “Yeah. It’s all going to be totally fine. No worries at all.”

One hour later:

“EVERYTHING IS NOT FINE!” the Doctor yells, running north and away from the large hole in the ground that was, until about a minute ago, Long Pond in Clapham. Of course he gets the borough with the giant winged _angry_ serpent. Why should things get any less weird than they already are?

“What happened?” his eldest self asks. “What’d we do, go and curse everything again?”

“THIS IS NOT MY FAULT!” the Doctor yells back. “PROBABLY! ALSO, BIT BUSY RUNNING!”

“What’s going on, Doc?” Jack demands. “You’ve got my wrist strap. Teleport out of there!”

“NOT ACTUALLY AT THE MOMENT, I DON’T!”

Jack pauses. “Well, that’s a new record.”

“I’m in the air. Helicopter,” Martha explains briefly. “I see it—oh, it’s bloody Typhaon again! I thought you said he’d be stuck in Central London, Crowley.”

“Unless he popped back into the original tunnel and maybe carved a new one!” Crowley answers—shouts, actually. The Doctor isn’t certain why until he’s grabbed from behind and his feet are no longer in contact with the walk. “Stop wriggling or I’ll drop you!” Crowley yells.

“Next time, warn me!” the Doctor retorts, glancing back over his shoulder. “And, actually, maybe fly higher. He’s clear of the pond.”

Crowley’s wingbeats are loud as he lifts them higher while turning them about. “Oi, that’s my schtick, you useless arsehole!” Crowley sounds insulted.

“You know, if I have to put up with suddenly having a dad in my life, I could at least have gotten wings out of the deal,” the Doctor complains. Then he abruptly raises his feet when Typhaon tries to snap at them. “Little bit higher, thanks!”

“I dunno if you have wings or not.”

“WHAT?” The Doctor winces; all three of his selves through a loud mic is definitely not ideal.

“Well, it’s not like you asked, and it doesn’t—oh fuck!” Crowley banks hard to the right. The Doctor isn’t prone to motion sickness, but it still feels like he just left most of his internal organs behind. Typhaon roars in thwarted outrage. “Whinge later. Does anyone know how to actually _stop_ Typhaon?” Crowley asks.

“They threw a mountain on him in one of the myths,” the Doctor’s younger self says.

“Well, let me just find the nearest mountain in bloody London!” Crowley tries to lift them higher, but the Doctor can sense that he’s starting to fight for it. His father is either not used to carrying heavy weight while flying, or something else is happening. “Granted, the mountain would plug up that hole that used to be a pond. Which, yeah, someone needs to do that before the Racnoss figure out that we’re already out of water for drowning them.”

“Lightning, you idiots!” Aziraphale snaps. “In almost every tale—”

“Zeus fries Typhaon with lightning,” the Doctor’s eldest self interjects excitedly. “Right! I’m all out of lightning right now, though. Also, I’m in the wrong bloody city.”

“There’s never a giant serpent-sized taser lurking about when you need one,” the Doctor mutters.

“Crowley, get yourself and the Time Lord out of the way!” Michael orders. He swoops by them, sunlight glittering off golden hair, armor, wings, and in general presenting a _really_ obvious target. “And if any of you call me Zeus after this, I’m not above arranging a trade with Lucy to make your life hell! Literally!”

“Someone please immediately call him that,” Lucy says.

“Wait.” The Doctor frowns. “Is Michael about to do something that involves a large amount of electricity being dropped onto Typhaon’s head?”

“Yeah, that’s the goal—oh. Shit. Michael, _wait_!” Crowley shouts, but it’s already too late. The comm squeals with electrical interference as Michael somehow calls forth enough lightning to turn a desert into glass. Typhaon’s pained screeching is deafening.

Then the electricity in the air hits. It’s like crashing into a concrete wall. The Doctor always feels electricity as it sings through the nerves of his body. That was at least one hundred million volts.

It bloody sodding _hurts_.

The Doctor realizes they’re dropping height. No, they’re falling. “Crowley!” the Doctor yells, surprised he wasn’t dropped when the lightning hit. He looks up and finds Crowley still trying to fly, one arm of his sunglasses clenched in his teeth while electricity crackles through his hair.

The Doctor looks down. They’re over a road, but this isn’t the highest he’s ever fallen. “Just let go! It’s only about fifty feet—the fall won’t kill me!”

Crowley makes a garbled sound that still comes across as angry disbelief. Then they’re suddenly dropping faster as Crowley tucks his wings in—and teleports them to the ground.

At the same velocity they were falling.

“Oh, second concrete wall of the day,” the Doctor groans, lifting his head from the grass. He tastes greenery and starts spitting out what he managed to ingest. “Plegh. Dandelions.”

“Struck by lightning twice in one _day_,” Crowley gurgles. “Michael, you fucking prick.”

The Doctor removes a smoking ear-piece from the side of his head, feeling a burn lurking just beneath it. Now he can smell burnt hair, too. “Don’t think he heard you.”

Crowley digs into his hair, swearing when leftover electricity zaps his fingers. Then he retrieves his destroyed ear-piece. “No. Guess not. Not that way, anyway.” _MICHAEL, YOU ABSOLUTE PRICK!_

The Doctor winces at the volume of the psychic shout. “I’m _right here_,” he grumbles.

“Sorry,” Crowley apologizes, and then Michael deafens them both. Again.

I’M SORRY. I HAVEN’T DONE THAT IN A WHILE. I FORGOT IT WOULD HAPPEN.

“Does that make him movie Thor, comic Thor, or original mythology Thor?” the Doctor wonders aloud.

“Early comic Thor, but with the first part of the first Thor movie thrown in.” Crowley pushes himself into a sitting position with a groan. “If this is meant to be an omen about how the rest of this day is going to go, then I quit.”

“Not without taking me with you, you’re not.” The Doctor prods at the burn just above his ear again. Then he spits out another few blades of grass. “Bloody pesticides.”

Crowley glares down at his ear-piece. “I’m too tired to fix that.” He makes the one the Doctor is holding vanish along with his own, replaced a moment later by two new ones. “Signals are all the same. Should be, anyway.”

“Got it.” The Doctor has everything reprogrammed just in time to hear Wilf say, “You know, we only have so many of those.”

“S’not like Torchwood can’t make more.” Crowley stands up, hisses under his breath, and then holds out his hand. “Come on. No rest for the wicked. Or the stupid.”

“Definitely not for the stupid,” the Doctor agrees. It’s still odd, staring at his own face and the unfair ginger part, but it’s starting to be sort of nice, too.

Oh, he’s getting attached. Terrible idea, that.

The giant serpent left behind a dissolving corpse. “Well, that’s an official discorporation, at least,” Crowley says, both of them watching the ashes flutter off into the wind. “Did anyone figure out how to—never mind.”

The Doctor glances over to find that the pond is full of water again. “Oh. That solves that problem.”

Crowley nods, rubbing at the Lichtenberg pattern that’s starting to appear on his bare forearm. “I’m so glad the Racnoss can’t swim.”

The ashes clear away, revealing that Michael is watching the serpent’s dissolution from the other side. Then he uses his sword to reach into the ashy mess, retrieving Jack’s vortex manipulator. “Is this what you lost, Doctor?”

Crowley glances at the Doctor. “He _ate_ it?”

“I didn’t hear Typhaon stick his head out of the water. He was trying for me, snagged the wrist strap…I decided better the wrist strap than me.” The Doctor tries not to grimace as something like black, ashy slime drips off of the leather. “Not so sure I want that back.”

“Just take it!” Jack snaps. “Trust me, it’s not the first time my wrist strap has been eaten.”

Crowley glances upwards and sighs. “That really didn’t help with the wanting it back, did it?”

“Nope.” The Doctor looks at his left palm, where a Lichtenberg figure is burnt into his skin. It was going to be a _very_ long day.


	30. Secret Agent Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _You’re not a demon anymore. You’re not a demon anymore. You’re not a demon anymore,_ Crowley repeats to himself, but he was literally made for mischief, and the British government just gave him Trouble Keys.
> 
> It won’t be his fault if they regret it. He didn’t even ask for that sort of access.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fuck yes the chapter title is a pun. For more than one reason.
> 
> BETA! By the lovely @mrsstanley, and cheerread as usual by @norcumii who I probably keep up too late at night with words.
> 
> SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER ALERT: This chapter contains direct references to the first two episodes of S12 of Doctor Who. You don't need to have watched the show to understand what's going on in the chapter, but if you don't want spoilers, you need to watch those first two episodes first.

The nonsense with Typhaon wasn’t an omen, at least not for Saturday. Crowley would love to be relieved by that, truly, but he’s busy: ordering people around, teleporting people off to safety when he can get away with it, and basically running himself into the ground as the day passes by in a big blur of Everything.

Most of what sticks with him are small moments, like taking the time to heal the burns and the Lichtenberg figure on his kid’s palm. The Doctor watches Crowley’s work with the same fascination that his eldest female self displays, asks similar questions, and generally does his best to prove that there are certain personality facets that don’t change because of a regeneration.

At least Crowley has been granted minions for this fucking mess. That would have been so bloody useful when he was still a demon, having actual minions. Not that he would have ordered them to be evil or anything; it would have just been a wider net for doling out chaos.

It wouldn’t have been fair to Aziraphale, though. Definitely unbalance the Agreement, him having that much more to thwart. Fucked-Up Gabriel would have despised the idea of giving Aziraphale any extra assistance, especially if that assistance was minions. Well, staff, Crowley supposes. Heaven would probably frown on the fact that Crowley is calling his current assistants his minions.

Heaven can bloody well cope. Mum probably thinks it’s hilarious.

The first thing Crowley did when meeting MI5’s lot, aside from dubbing them minions, was to tell them to divide into smaller teams, assigning each group to a Celestial or a Doctor. He doesn’t need _all_ of them, but the others definitely need the help, whether it’s convincing the humans to do something or just in navigating Greater London.

Besides, if the bloody government is going to make him be responsible for yet _more people_, he isn’t going to suffer alone.

It’s annoying, though, finding out how much the bloody lingo has changed since the Cold War. It isn’t only titles—“For fuck’s sake, just call me _Crowley!_”—but the codes for jobs, the acronyms, the bloody initialisms and abbreviations. Crowley dubs one of his MI5 minions, an analyst named Phillips, as a translator until he picks up the changes. It won’t take long, but in the meantime, it’s annoying.

Aziraphale is adapting to the language faster than he is. Crowley is most definitely not sulking about that.

“How do you _not_ know this, sir?” Phillips asks, retying her thick hair back when it partially escapes from its tail.

“I’ve been out of the fun for thirty years. Things change. My closest encounter with any part of the intelligence service since 1989 is Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, and bloody Daniel Craig.”

Phillips grins while listening to their minions report in from their various locations. “Craig’s one of the best recruiting tools we’ve got right now for both agencies, you know.”

“And he’s fit.” Crowley stares down at the stupid map that is _too fucking small_. “That definitely helps. Is there a larger version of this thing?”

“I just won twenty quid. Burbage was certain you were straight and I was certain you weren’t.” Phillips pulls an iPad out of her kit and hands it over. “There. That way you can enlarge it by section.”

“Bloody thank you.” Crowley finds their current location flagged on the map and enlarges the entire area. “How the hell did we get from Southwark to Brent?” They’re at the southern edge; he’s perched on a gravestone belonging to Kensal Green’s cemetery. Choosing the cemetery as their latest base of operations earned Crowley several odd looks from the minions, but unlike the parks, the civilians on foot aren’t tramping directly through them. Humans and their respect (or fear) of disturbing burial sites hasn’t changed all that much in thousands of years, and he’s just fine with taking advantage of that.

“You drive like a bat out of hell, sir,” Phillips replies. Crowley rolls his eyes as Saraquel laughs through the comm. “If you don’t mind me saying so, you need glasses that aren’t sunglasses, sir.”

“Stop calling me sir. It’s annoying.” Crowley lifts his head and looks to the south. Across the expanse of empty rail lines are houses. He turns his head to the north and it’s worse—rows upon rows upon rows of neatly aligned houses that never seem to stop. “You got a line on an alien optometrist then, Phillips?”

“Why would you need one of those?” Phillips’ voice overlaps with Israfil’s. “There’s not a bloody thing wrong with my vision,” Israfil continues. Yours should be fine, too.”

Crowley reaches up and pulls his sunglasses down for Phillips, showing her his eyes. “That’s why. They don’t have the technology on this planet to correct my inability to read humans’ stupid tiny font without blinding other parts of my vision that I happen to need.”

Phillips doesn’t seem the slightest bit bothered by his eyes. She looks young, but she can’t be new, not to be that field-jaded. “If you’re an alien, why aren’t you with MI6 instead of MI5? That’s the lot with the alien department.”

“What? Since when?” Not-Jane asks. “They sacked that department before C was assassinated earlier this year.”

Crowley sighs. “I’m not an alien!”

“It’s not my department or my office, Doctor ma’am, so I’m not privy to those details,” Phillips replies. “All I know is that the department exists.”

“Crowley!”

“My eyes were stuck this way for thousands of years, Israfil,” Crowley grits out. “It’s like the problem with the tear ducts. Some things can’t be fixed.”

“Not even by shifting them?” Israfil asks quietly.

“Nah. That just makes it worse, actually.” Crowley turns the digital map around in a circle to look at the entire southern section of the borough. “My lot are taking Kensal Green.”

“Torchwood One has Brondesbury Park,” Martha says, naming the next ward over.

“British Army, Team 118, has Harlesden.”

“British Navy, Team 42, is going to outpace Team 118 for Mapesbury.”

“The hell you are!”

“UNIT Section 1 has Willesden,” Magambo says before the testosterone threatens to drown them.

“Church End and Roundwood are Torchwood Three, then.” That isn’t Jack, but Crowley can hear him in the background. That means three people he knows will be in the area, which is far more reassuring than he’d like it to be. The last time Crowley was surrounded by this many humans in military dress, he’d literally been in the middle of a war.

Crowley keeps Phillips with him, who is no longer whinging about having to act as translator for ECSG’s tiny bloody printed packet of useful (mostly) information. Crowley put his jacket back on to look a bit more respectable, but it’s sort of like putting a dead plant into a new pot at this point. He’s conserving energy, which means he can’t miracle his t-shirt, denims, and boots into better condition, and he likes the Lichtenberg figure on the back of his jacket…even after being struck by lightning twice in less than twelve hours. People will just have to be convinced by the stupid name badge someone desperate and harried clipped to Crowley’s jacket before he could stop them. His jacket’s seen enough abuse today; he found a lanyard to wear and shoved it into a plastic sleeve, instead.

Phillips and McNair have shiny official name badges attached to their business-cut jackets. It’s probably their presence that makes anyone listen to Crowley at all, because he sure as hell isn’t up to nudging people into just going along with things.

Sometime around noon, mid-Kensal Green, someone from a different volunteer group shows up long enough to shove a plain leather billfold into Crowley’s hand before stalking off. Crowley pulls a face at them; it’s not _his _fault that particular agent got put on delivery detail. The brief visit gives him a new set of cards that can get him into places that no one sane would want Crowley to go. He thinks it’s hilarious that they left his falsified birthdate from the old days alone while updating everything else on his ID. The other card has a magnetic strip and could probably get him into so much trouble. He knows exactly how many secured doors it’s capable of opening, and he’s not above nudging it into being capable of opening the rest.

_You’re not a demon anymore. You’re not a demon anymore. You’re not a demon anymore, _Crowley repeats to himself, but he was literally made for mischief, and the British government just gave him Trouble Keys.

It won’t be his fault if they regret it. He didn’t even ask for that sort of access.

They walk up each street in teams of three. Even Crowley won’t go it alone, not with an unknown timer on the Racnoss ticking away. His eyes dart along the scenery as they pass hedgerows, garden gates, rows of bins, and the few parked cars remaining on both sides of the road. Everyone who was smart and had a vehicle evacuated when they first heard the announcements. Now it’s time to clean out the stubborn, or the ones who can’t get out on their own. The medical types have lists via NHS of the disabled who need assistance, but that doesn’t mean the lists are complete. If someone is still tied up in the system waiting for an official declaration, or they were booted from the system for not meeting the new and shoddy standards, then they need help.

Crowley hates how many times he’s overheard the other teams find the elderly, the bedbound, the deaf and blind who can’t hear the sirens or see the lights, the chronically ill who don’t even have a bloody set of crutches—and not a one of them on any bloody list.

Fuck it. Crowley is rigging the next election, no matter how much Aziraphale pouts at him not to do it. He was an actual demon and he treated people better than this.

“Life signs in that house there,” McNair says, pointing to a house at the end of the street. He goes to pull out a sort of x-ray device that really shouldn’t exist yet on this planet and then pauses. “Unless you’d like to save us the time, sir.”

“Oh, sure, make me do your job for you.” Crowley approaches the house, glad to see a window cracked open. Someone has a security lock wedged into place, but too many humans tend to forget that it’s really easy to break glass.

Not that Crowley needs to. There isn’t a damned thing wrong with his ability to scent-taste the air. He flicks out his tongue and frowns as he sorts through the results. There are so many—he hates scented dryer sheets—but they’re older. No humans, aliens, or otherwise. Gerbil in a cage full of fresh hay, probably upstairs. Dogfood downstairs, along with a dog. “It’s just a German shepherd,” he tells the others.

Phillips sighs. “We finally got through a block without finding anyone. That’s a nice change.”

“Good job on opening your mouth.” Crowley points up the street. “There’s a person in that house to your left.”

Crowley lets McNair get to the point of unfolding a portable prybar before he turns the doorknob, unlocking the lock and bolt with a silent miracle. McNair rolls his eyes and puts it away.

The only resident of the home is on the first floor, close to the loo. She’s in a full hospital bed with monitoring equipment, like Wilf had been before two Healers dumped a load of Artron energy into his blood. Unlike Wilf, this one is on life support.

“I’m Margery,” she whispers through the oxygen mask. “You can…be moving along to…check the other houses. I’m all right here.”

“I’m afraid we can’t do that, ma’am,” Phillips starts to say, but Crowley holds up his hand.

“Wait.” He picks Margery’s fragile wrist, feeling her pulse flutter beneath his fingers. She’s younger than he thought, mid-fifties instead of mid-seventies—oh. “Drug-resistant HIV infection, huh?”

Margery offers a faint smile. “Picked it up from…from an accidental jab while working ICU, and then…well, just my luck. S’why…I told the others to…to off and leave without me.”

“You can’t just give up.” McNair sounds offended by the idea.

“She’s not. She just knew that today was going to be her last, and wanted a clean goodbye. Right?” Crowley asks.

Margery’s head moves, a slight up-and-down. She takes a few breaths through her oxygen mask before speaking again. “I know it’s…my time. If they’d tried to move me…it would’ve done me in. I didn’t want that on my daughter’s conscience, her thinking…thinking she’d killed me.”

Crowley turns off the mic for his ear-piece. “You lot, go check the rest of the houses on this street. I’ll catch up.”

“Sir.” Phillips swallows. “You’re not going to—”

“You sound like you’re expecting me to smother her with a pillow the moment your back’s turned.” Crowley rolls his eyes. “Don’t be daft. This isn’t a bloody show on the telly. Houses.” He narrows his eyes when neither of them move. “_Now_. Or are you forgetting about the other eight million Londoners we’re supposed to be moving?”

McNair takes Phillips by the arm and has to all but drag her out. Crowley is strongly reminded of the Doctor in that moment. “There’s another one who doesn’t like it when people die.”

Margery lets out a rough chuckle. “Poor dear’s in…in the wrong line of work.”

“Nah, she’s usually an analyst. Phillips doesn’t see the messy side unless it’s statistics. Statistics are evil. Nice to know I can still order people around without pulling out the Healer voice, though.”

Crowley finds a chair and pulls it up next to Margery’s bedside. “I need to apologize, because I’d like to help you, but I can’t.” It isn’t even the lack of energy. She already has Azrael’s mark. Trying to move her will just kill her that much faster, cause her pain…he’s not really into cruelty.

“Didn’t expect…any last minute miracles,” Margery says in obvious amusement. “Accidental jab happened…just after I had my daughter. Got to see her…grow up…have kids…see them…walk. Talk. I’m…ready. She’s…not.”

Crowley nods. “Funerals exist because we don’t know how to cope with being left behind. I’d like to take credit for inventing funerals, but nah. That was Uriel.”

Margery blinks at him several times, filled with the magical awareness that dying humans sometimes latch onto before the end comes. “Are you an…angel?”

Crowley releases his wings from confinement and shakes them out before he takes off his glasses. “I’m not really your standard sort of angel. Definitely don’t carry a harp. My name used to be Zaherael, but these days I go by Crowley. Nice to meet you, Margery.”

Margery lifts her frail, trembling hand. Crowley shakes it gently, careful not to leave bruises behind. “I’m…not Christian,” she admits.

Crowley shrugs. “Who cares? What I’m worried about right now is you stuck here, dying alone, and I don’t like the idea. You don’t have much time left, but it’s long enough that I can’t stay. It wouldn’t be fair to anyone else in London if I did. So, I was wondering if you minded if I called in someone else who can be here with you.”

“That would…if they’re not needed for the…the evacuation.” Margery smiles. “That would…be nice.”

“Cool. Azrael?”

The angel steps into existence, his tattered robes hanging off his thin body. Then he pulls his hood back, revealing the death-pallor of his skin and the space void color of his hair. When Azrael unfurls his black wings, every living star in the universe brightens the room. “Margery Jean Hascom. We’re meeting a bit earlier than I expected.”

Margery stares at Azrael. Crowley probably should have warned her. “You’re…Death. Death is…a real…person?”

“Angel. Celestial.” Azrael looks down at Crowley, raising an eyebrow. “You wish for me to sit with her. You’ve not asked that of me in a long time.”

“Yeah, well. Hasn’t really been a need, has there?”

Azrael frowns and then reaches out, resting his bony fingers on Crowley’s shoulder. He’s not skeletal in this form, but sometimes he slips closer to bone than flesh. “I missed you. Both of you. It is not your fault that when the need existed, you didn’t know I would answer your call.”

Making Crowley have feelings is totally uncalled for. “I’m just glad you’re not doing the dramatic booming rubbish voice bit right now.”

“Do all angels…have dark wings?” Margery asks curiously.

Crowley tries to figure out how to answer that question and decides she can learn about Below and its politics after dying, because teaching the dying about politics isn’t his job. She isn’t going down there, anyway. “Not really. We’re sort of the odd ones out. Azrael?”

Azrael stretches his wings. “I AM EVERYWHERE. I will stay with her, Zaherael, but I’m taking that chair.”

Crowley stands up and resists the urge to hit Azrael with the stupid chair. “It’s Crowley!”

“Whatever,” Azrael responds, like a complete arsehole. “Rejoin the others. I believe you are busy.”

“Right, yeah. Any other advice?” Crowley asks. “Pretty sure you scared a few more centuries _into_ Brothel Boy this morning when you spoke to him.”

Azrael gives Crowley a thoughtful look. “_Do not give in to despair. It will not be as you believe_.”

“Thanks; that was useless.” Crowley hides his wings again. “Margery, ask this cryptic shit to tell you about the failed Apocalypse last year, and how he got his arse handed to him by a bunch of eleven-year-olds.”

“THAT IS NOT TRUE. I LEFT.”

“Running away counts as losing.”

Margery laughs at them, faint puffs of air that look painful. “Go…help others…Crowley. I hope they are…as glad to see you…as I was.”

Crowley slides his glasses back on. “Take care of yourself, Margery, and I mean that for afterwards. Thanks, Azrael.”

“GOODBYE, CROWLEY.”

“Dramatic fuck. You did that on purpose,” Crowley mutters after he leaves Margery’s house. He digs through his pockets until he finds the biohazard tag that’s supposed to go onto the doors of houses that’ll need a clean-up crew when the recovery groups comb through London. He really didn’t want to use it, but he peels off the sticker’s backing and slaps it into place on Margery’s door.

“_Do not give in to despair. It will not be as you believe,_” Crowley repeats as he paces down the street to catch up with Phillips and McNair. “What the fuck am I supposed to do with that? It’s ridiculous, is what it is.” Bloody prophecies and cryptic advice floating around everywhere. It’s enough to drive him to drink, but no, he’s got to stay bloody sober for this!

Crowley turns his mic back on and swaps the channel to the broader command frequency. “Is anyone else here old enough to remember when drinking at work was encouraged?”

“I am,” Jack responds. “Why?”

“Dying patient that can’t be moved. Having a friend sit with her for the next hour or so. The house is marked. I really want whiskey right now. Neat, on the rocks, straight from the bottle, don’t care.”

“Same here.” Jack sounds like he’s pissed off. “I’ve got two houses marked, and we just found a flat with six kids and no parents.”

Crowley slows down and stops walking. “How are they?”

“Scared to death, and I don’t blame them,” Jack answers. “The eldest boy says their mother—single parent—died in a car accident three days ago. Local constables came by and told them at dawn, said that someone from the local branch of CPS would come for them later in the morning. Those officers took off instead of staying with the kids, and no one else has been to the flat since then.”

“Wait. Hold on. I’m trying to decide who to kill first.” Crowley clenches his hands into fists. Kids. What is it with humanity doing this to kids? Who just forgets about six brand-new orphans?

Bureaucracy. He _hates_ bureaucracy. He’s so glad he didn’t invent that shit.

Crowley switches channels. “Gabriel, if I punch you later, it’s because you invented bureaucracy.”

“I didn’t do it alone,” Gabriel protests. “Uriel and Michael assisted in that process!”

“You did _not_ just throw me under the bus,” Uriel states flatly. “I only suggested we archive our doings.”

“I only suggested improvements!” Michael argues, and then the three of them are tossing the blame-ball back and forth. Somewhere in the midst of his siblings’ squabbling over which of them was responsible for the more horrific aspects of bureaucracy, Crowley starts laughing, if only because it’s better than sobbing.

* * * *

The Doctor’s mobile dings (well, dongs) to announce an incoming text. She pulls it from her coat pocket, intending to just glance at the message and put it back, when she notices the name attached to it. “Sorry guys. I need to go have a chat with someone.”

Wilf takes a turn at playing mother hen: “Remember to bloody well sit back down! Healer’s orders, Doctor!”

“Yes, yes, I’m going to be sitting! Just keep listening to everyone in London. Oh, and let me know how the bureaucracy argument turns out, will you?”

The balcony was a nice find, neatly hidden by the curve of the stairs. She slides open the glass door and closes it again before sitting down on the concrete balcony. It’s a nice day in Sheffield, lovely overcast English weather with just a hint of probably-going-to-ruin-things-with-rain later.

The Doctor holds the phone against her chest before she turns off the mic for her ear-piece and sets it aside. Then she looks at the screen again.

**13:15 Secret O: **London seems to be lively today. Is that you, Doctor?

She scowls at the phone and then starts replying, which is probably a mistake.

**13:18 Doctor:** I was down there earlier. Well, technically, I’m still down there. It’s just two different versions of me. I’m in Sheffield.

**13:19 Secret O:** Just what the world needs: too many of you in one place. Three of you if we include the entire island. It was, admittedly, far worse when it was five of you at once, so I will consider myself fortunate.

**13:20 Doctor:** If you’re out and about on Earth again, I’d say that more of me being here is a necessity. How long did it take you to figure out how to travel out of the Kasaavin’s dimension?

**13:21 Secret O: **You mean the Kasaavin’s universe.

**13:21 Doctor:** Oh, no I don’t. Definitely a separate dimension. I’ve been in another universe for realsies, and it’s nothing like we were ever told about. Also, it’s sort of depressing. Everything else is just differing layers of reality and why am I still talking to you?

**13:23 Secret O:** I’m irresistible…and rather grateful for autocorrect at the moment, because the English language is a terrible invention that deserves to die. I still don’t believe that’s how that word is meant to be spelled.

**13:24 Secret O:** Wait, did you honestly just say for realsies?

**13:24 Doctor:** …okay, I’ll give you that one. Not the irresistible part, the language bit. Why were you upset when I stopped you from helping the Kasaavin re-write everyone’s DNA?

**13:26 Secret O:** I was not upset.

**13:26 Doctor:** Wow, you’re a terrible liar. I thought I was bad. You normally get angry if I thwart you. (And that is suddenly hilarious for reasons I have no idea how to explain.) But you weren’t angry. You were crying.

**13:26 Secret O:** Lies.

**13:27 Doctor:** You were crying at the end of the message you left me, too. After Gallifrey.

**13:32 Secret O:** What did you think of my redecoration efforts?

**13:32 Doctor:** There weren’t any bodies.

**13:34 Secret O:** That’s what you take away from it all? I burn down the Citadel, and you only want to talk about corpses?

**13:36 Doctor:** Oh, O. Master. Missy. Whatever you want me to call you. You’re forgetting that I changed Gallifrey’s fate. You forgot that** I once burned the entire planet to ashes **and Time-locked it all so no one could ever get ahold of all the terrible inventions we’d left behind. **I’ve done ever so much worse than you.**

**13:36 Doctor: **So, no need to be a pompous arse about it all.

**13:37 Secret O: **I know we said as children that we would never, ever date each other, but that was rather hot.

**13:37 Doctor:** Oh, God. No! None of that. That’s just weird. Don’t ever say anything like that again.

**13:40 Secret O:** I loved our home, Doctor. I still had family there. Your mother still lived within that little pocket dimension you tucked our world into.

**13:40 Secret O:** I hated the lies. Not them. Granted, I’m not so fond of other Time Lords right now. You remain an exception. Be grateful.

The Doctor bites her lip, tears threatening to fall. _Oh, please. Stars and cats, please._

**13:42 Doctor:** You saw my mother?

**13:44 Secret O:** I might or might not have done so.

**13:44 Doctor: **No games, not for her. Please tell me.

**13:45 Secret O:** Briefly.

**13:46 Doctor:** She’s the only one left of my entire House. Just her, O. She stood up to Rassilon and he publicly humiliated her for it, but she did it anyway because he was **wrong**. You saw her. You were there standing in that room with me when Rassilon tried to destroy the Earth and Gallifrey both by doing something that could **not** be done.

**13:47 Secret O:** …

**13:47 Secret O: **I didn’t kill her. You’re welcome.

**13:48 Secret O:** I can’t tell you anything else about her. The Citadel was the only city on Gallifrey left standing after the war, Doctor. They scattered from its ashes and I left them to their fates. If the old Houses still stand…I didn’t go. I didn’t look. I really wasn’t in the mood for my family to…well. You know.

**13:49 Doctor:** Right. Yes. Okay. Back to an earlier question, then. You keep trying to destroy humanity. You mentioned the Timeless Child in your message.

**13:49 Secret O:** More like I called her out. Doctor. Hybrid. Outcast. Timeless Child.

**13:50 Doctor:** You promised. You promised you would **never** call me that again. Not after what I told you they’d all said to me.

**13:50 Secret O:** I might’ve lied. I might not’ve. I haven’t decided yet.

**13:51 Doctor: **You can’t destroy humanity to stop my father from being born.

**13:51 Secret O:** Figured it out, did you?

**13:52 Doctor: **I’m a bit more insulted that you were trying to stop me from existing, really, but yes.

**13:52 Secret O: **Paradoxes exist. I rather like having you about. It’s the problematic nature of why Time Lords exist that is currently infuriating.

**13:53 Doctor:** I know it’s disappointing to learn that your hero is a dick, but honestly, you should have recognized that about Rassilon the moment he woke up and decided to start a war that nearly broke the universe.

**13:54 Secret O: **Yes. Point.

**13:54 Secret O: **You called Rassilon a dick. I feel as if I may faint.

**13:55 Secret O:** I might also have still been a tad out of my mind when I first met Rassilon again. Or I still am. It’s a bit disturbing when your past self kills your current self. Messes with your head a bit.

**13:56 Doctor: ***facepalm*

**13:56 Secret O: **The silly thing is, I knew he was going to do it. I thought I’d gotten around his daft little idea of stopping me from healing or regenerating, but I lost a few pertinent details from the regeneration, and…well. It took some doing to get off that bloody space station. Oh, I missed my TARDIS. It was good to find her again.

**13:57 Secret O: **But now she likes you. She **likes** you, Doctor. I feel like you’ve infected my home.

**13:58 Doctor: **I might’ve hung about digging through all the nooks and crannies. Why not, right? Also, all of your ‘literature’ you have compiled on me makes you come across as a creepy stalker.

**13:58 Secret O:** I am a creepy stalker, thank you.

**13:59 Doctor:** Are you in London right now?

**13:59 Secret O: **God, no. The moment I heard the word Racnoss float through MI6, I made my excuses and packed up and left.

**14:00 Secret O:** I’m still not certain why I still had a job. It’s the oddest thing how no one seems to know that I did something naughty. Forgive the pun based on the Kasaavin affair, but C needed to be upgraded quite a while ago.

**14:00 Doctor:** Pun not forgiven because it’s terrible. But hey, you still having a job. Funny, that. You even went back to it, claimed it, settled in again at MI6. It’s almost like someone owes me a **favor**.

**14:01 Secret O:** I could have restored my position in MI6 even if you’d told them everything, Timeless Child.

**14:01 Doctor: **Still a bad liar. Stop calling me that.

**14:02 Secret O:** I’ve made my decision. You are correct; you did me a favor. I don’t have to spend years ingratiating myself again. It saves time that is best spent on other projects. I will either cease to call you Timeless Child or I will do…whatever it is you have in mind. It’s probably heroic and stupid.

**14:02 Doctor:** You already know which one I’ll choose.

**14:03 Secret O:** I know, Timeless Child.

**14:03 Doctor:** So much hate right now. You know what I’m doing in London with those three versions of my TARDIS.

**14:04 Secret O:** You want a southern crossing of the M25. You want me to allow smelly humans to waltz their way through my TARDIS.

**14:04 Secret O: **Are you certain you wouldn’t rather have me cease to call you a certain name?

**14:05 Doctor: **O, darling, I’m absolutely sure of it. Besides, you’re not an idiot. You know how to rearrange the dimensional boxes inside your ship so you don’t have to be seen by or interact with anyone. I’ll even call spoilers if the others have questions about a fourth TARDIS showing up. They’ll assume it’s another Me.

**14:05 Secret O: **Your “Fam” in Sheffield won’t.

**14:06 Doctor:** No. No, they won’t. But they’ll understand why. Some things are more important than being angry at someone for being a bloody nutter. But you really, really might want to stay off the radar, even after you’ve done this favor for me. (And the favor means staying until it’s time to light up the M25 tomorrow, so no early escapes, you.)

**14:06 Secret O: **AFTER THEY WHAT?

**14:07 Doctor: **I didn’t mention that part? Sorry. My new friend Lucy is setting the M25 on fire tomorrow. She calls it black fire. I can’t wait to point the TARDIS at it and find out what it actually is. After the TARDIS is out of the way and I’m back in London, at least.

**14:08 Secret O:** You’re making me remember how much I enjoyed texting with you, because you’re even more mental than I am. How dare you.

**14:08 Secret O: **Your failing is that you want to be bloody **nice** to everyone.

**14:08 Doctor: **I’m being nice to **you**, so I wouldn’t be whinging if I was sittin’ in your place right now. Jack, Martha, Mickey, Tish—they wouldn’t be all that happy to see you, though. I sort of lied to them yesterday about your current whereabouts and activities. If they knew you were on Earth…

**14:09 Secret O: **That one doesn’t count as a favor to me. I don’t benefit from it.

**14:09 Doctor: **If Jack decided to hunt you down, there is literally nothing that could make him stop.

**14:09 Secret O:** A black hole would do the job.

**14:10 Doctor:** LOL I ate a black hole for breakfast, bring it.

**14:10 Doctor: **No seriously, I ate a black hole for breakfast, it tasted awful.

**14:11 Secret O:** ….

**14:12 Secret O: **If you tell me why you did something that daft while I’m allowing humans to traipse through my TARDIS to leave London, I will participate in this pitiful excuse for an evacuation without whinging at all.

**14:12 Doctor: **Because I didn’t want a black hole to eat the Earth.

**14:13 Secret O: **Ah. What time was this particular event?

**14:13 Doctor: **Five o’clock almost on the dot! A few minutes after that, really, but close enough.

**14:14 Secret O: **Goddammit! I was still on that sodding miserable planet at the time!

**14:14 Secret O:** I’m not thanking you. You made me live through the 20th century on Earth. I’m **definitely** not thanking you.

**14:14 Doctor: **“We didn’t start the fire…”

**14:15 Secret O:** I hate you so much right now.

The Doctor finalizes details with O, and knows he’s done it when she picks up her ear-piece to find a number of voices loudly demanding to know why there is a fourth passage now in place over the M25 in the south. “There’s nothing but spoilers in that direction,” the Doctor interrupts Sir Hughes and the RAF Vice Admiral, who sound like they’re on the verge of having it out with each other. “Let’s all agree to leave it at fourth TARDIS, another escape route, and spoilers because nope, spoilers. Just be grateful for the help, all right?”

“Right,” Sir Hughes says after a moment.

“Spoilers. Gotcha,” Martha agrees, sounding far too suspicious.

**14:21 Secret O:** I can hear you, you know. You’re still being too nice to them.

**14:21 Doctor: **I’ll sing the rest of the song, O. Every single verse. I have it memorized.

**14:22 Secret O: **Shutting up about the niceness. I want the full story on the black hole breakfast after you’re settled on the comms again, or I’m leaving. Why aren’t you in London? Who’s flying your TARDIS?

**14:23 Doctor:** The Bad Wolf is flying my TARDIS, so behave. I’m not in London because our spleens are amazing organs until we damage them, and then they hate us and refuse to let us ever forget it.

**14:23 Secret O:** You did something stupid, didn’t you.

**14:23 Doctor:** Sonic mine, mostly not my fault, a few weeks into this regeneration. Healed up from that, but then the road collapsed this morning and I sort of fell wrong because I’d just tried to eat black hole matter. All healed up again now! Mostly.

**14:24 Secret O:** Sit down, you idiot.

The Doctor bites back a smile and sniffs as she goes back inside. He’s such a complete arse, a dangerous mental nutter, but…but he knows her.

She really should sit back down.

“Doc?” Graham asks, eyebrows raised. She takes the hint and turns her mic off again. “All our mics are off on this side, too. Now tell me that’s not who we think it is.”

“Yes, it’s him, but O owes me a favor. I mean afterward he might try to kill us all again, but in the meantime, he’s behaving himself.”

Ryan squeezes his eyes shut. “Oh, God. Please let it not involve more crashing aeroplanes.”

“I’m more worried about my mobile turning traitor on me, really,” Yas says.

“That won’t happen! Probably!” the Doctor adds. “Look, just…I know. I get it. I really do understand. But he’s parked his TARDIS over the M25 and he’s letting people cross, and London needs that right now.”

Wilf gives her a careful look. “Are we talking about that same blonde bloke who saved your life ten years ago?”

The Doctor’s eyes widen. “Uh, same Time Lord, different appearance, slightly less insane.”

Wilf nods. “He still saved your life when he didn’t have to. I’m willing to keep an open mind.”

“He tried to re-write all of humanity’s DNA a few months ago,” Yas tells Wilf in a dry voice.

“O did do that, yeah,” the Doctor admits. “And then he left every single thing we’d need to stop him scattered about like puzzle pieces. That wasn’t a real attempt at wiping out humanity. That was just him wantin’ my attention.”

“Has the man never heard of a telephone?” Graham asks, unimpressed.

The Doctor glances at her mobile. “He’s de-escalated back down to texts again, so…that’s progress, right?” The Fam definitely aren’t convinced. She doesn’t blame them. “Listen, unless he outs himself, I need a favor, and I’m so sorry. I need you to not mention any of the stuff with O and the Kasaavin around the others, and especially not mention who’s in that fourth TARDIS. I’ll let you know when that changes, but—the Master really upset some of them when he was actually not-his-fault insane, and they’d want to make him very, _very_ dead.”

“Why are we tolerating this bloke?” Ryan asks. “I mean, no offence, Doctor, but he tried to kill us. What’s the game plan here? His or yours, I’ll take either one before we go out with the volunteers and set about getting London evacuees settled into the local hotels, but I wanna hear something, ya know?”

The Doctor taps her fingers on the back of her mobile. “Something’s wrong,” she finally says. “I mean, something is wrong enough that instead of letting me blunder into it, he _told_ me. The Master never just tells me anything. He likes puzzles and games too much. If he’s telling me things like this, then it’s…it’s bad. It’s bad, and it involves me, and _I can’t remember any of it_.”


	31. The Ark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley crosses his arms so that he can prop up his chin on his hand, studying the orbit of the Earth, the orbit of the moon, and a ridiculous amount of space rubbish. “Y’know, I’ve read about this, but I didn’t think it was that bad. Do I need to hang a No Littering sign up here? Bloody idiots.”
> 
> Then again, he does need to start somewhere. What are the humans going to do, complain that he stole their space rubbish?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd awesomely by @mrsstanley and cheered on by @norcumii!

Crowley has completely lost track of boroughs and numbers when he finally meets the person who calls himself his boss, the Deputy Director General. Crowley remembers _DDG _and _white bloke in glasses_, and that’s about when he stopped caring, because the DDG’s attempt to establish a pecking order was slowing down the evacuation.

“Look, I’ll compare penis sizes with you later if it’ll make you happy,” Crowley says to the DDG, who turns an entertaining shade of red. “But right now, I’m busy. You should be busy. You should be busy somewhere else, being busy, because there is too much shit to do for you to be worried about who the hell I am when you should be worried about everyone else.”

“If you keep insulting him, you won’t be MI5 when this all blows over,” McNair says after the DDG leaves.

“How many times do I have to insult him for that to be a guarantee?”

Then there is the drama of a fourth TARDIS quietly parking itself over the south end of the M25. Crowley is relieved to have the help, suspicious of the timing, and doubly suspicious of his kid slapping down all questions, even from her other selves, under the label of Spoilers.

Crowley sends a text to the mobile listing marked Smith J, which will get him the kid running around with his and Israfil’s face…even though it’s the exact same mobile number as the listing for Doctor John and Doctor Jane. He can’t even blame it on a signal difference, because he doesn’t hear one. Fortunately, he’s used to things working because he expects them to do so.

**14: 35 Crowley: **when you sonic’d the mobiles for us stupid types, did that include keeping the mobile texting private or just works-anywhere-awesome?

**14:35 Smith J:** Sonic’d isn’t a word but I like it. Someone really clever could hack into the signal, probably, but not after I asked the TARDIS to boost the encryption. The other two are helping.

**14:35 Crowley:** you too, huh? btw all 4 ships are gossiping with each other, but it’s not the same gossip frequency

**14:36 Smith J:** The moment I’m burying everything under the spoilers label and not even telling myself what’s going on is the moment I know I’m up to things. She stopped calling you Dad after TARDIS number four materialized over the M25.

**14:36 Smith J: **Gossip does **not** have a frequency.

**14:36 Crowley:** i really like it better when people tell me I’m being ridiculous

**14:36 Crowley: **it totally does

Then he texts Not-Jane. He wants to know what to expect from the south. Even a hint would be nice.

**14:37 Crowley:** is there potentially a crazy person parked over the M25?

**14:37 Doctor Jane: **Yeah, four of them. Be more specific?

**14:37 Crowley: ***eye roll* south end, Not-Jane

**14:38 Doctor Jane: **Maybe, but there is blackmail and favors involved. Also, still not certain about the crazy part, but he really hates Billy Joel now.

**14:38 Crowley:** i like them better already

**14:39 Doctor Jane:** They’re also distracted by story time. He likes knowing things. She is. They are. Honestly I’m still trying to figure out if that’s his actual regeneration or a disguise, and if it’s a disguise then no idea what gender is underneath. He isn’t complaining about He, though, so ??

**14:39 Crowley:** so don’t worry about it until we need to worry about it?

**14:39 Doctor Jane:** About like that, yeah.

**14:40 Doctor Jane:** He’s scared.

**14:40 Crowley:** i’d be shit scared of the Racnoss, too

**14:40 Doctor Jane: **Not of them.

**14:40 Doctor Jane:** Well, not only them. Something else. Discuss after London is saved?

**14:41 Crowley: **if you want, sure, no pressure

**14:41 Doctor Jane:** Having you about is weird.

**14:41 Crowley:** that’s John Smith’s line

Patel is on the command frequency about an hour after that. “We’ll make it before noon tomorrow. The biggest slowdown was Londoners without vehicles, and with the south end opened up…less than thirty hours. I still don’t think twenty-four hours is realistic, but we’ll pull it off below thirty.”

“We’re going to need to break for thirty at some point this evening,” Mickey says. “Some of us have been at this London-saving bit since yesterday, mate.”

“We’re working on setup for a grub line.” Army human—the army general, Crowley thinks. “And we’re staffing a Starbucks inside Heathrow, because I want a fucking coffee.”

“Since when is military tar not good enough?”

“Since someone invented quad shots.” That’s RAF, Crowley thinks, but can’t remember which one. Ugh, too many humans are suddenly in his life, he can’t keep up with them all.

“We’re aiming for half-hour rotations on feeding our faces starting at 18:00. Messages will be sent to the lead of each team so you know when to bring your people in. In the meantime, raid a corner market if you can’t wait that long. We’ll reimburse the owners after reclamation. Take supplies if you need them, because we’re only setting up breakfast in the EEC areas.”

Aziraphale might kill someone if he has to wait from dinner yesterday to dinner today for something to nibble. Crowley focuses long enough to nudge the schedule being created, making certain their group of fourteen stupid people will be going to Heathrow at six for the first round of whatever MEG puts together and calls food.

Then he wonders how they’re going to feed Rose, Donna, and the youngest Doctor. Those ships had kitchens, didn’t they?

Maybe he should be more concerned about Donna and Rose’s ability to stay awake. Rose hadn’t slept in days already; Donna hasn’t slept well since the time loop began, and not at all last night.

Fuck, why is everything so complicated?

Crowley doesn’t recall passing out, but waking is definitely lodged in his memory, because he wakes up to Lucy slapping him. Phillips is lurking behind her, looking half-terrified. “Oi, what the fuck!”

“That is very much what I’d like to know,” Lucy retorts, her eyes burning to reflect her anger. “Israfil, I know you are exceptionally busy, but I need you to come to my location for a moment.”

“Got it. Yes, I’ll bloody well be right back. You’re asking how? Really? I fixed someone’s severed spine five minutes ago and you’re asking me how I’ll be right back?” Israfil huffs and then appears next to Lucy. He ditched his suit jacket at some point, replacing it with a doctor’s white coat—probably so the hospital types would actually listen to him. They’re a stubborn lot. “And you’re on the ground,” Israfil continues, frowning down at Crowley. “Why are you on the ground?”

“I either laid down on purpose or I fell down, but I don’t remember which one,” Crowley mumbles. He is suddenly, achingly aware of how tired he is. What he wants most is to return to whatever blissful state of unconsciousness Lucy decided to interrupt like…like a…demon. Person.

Israfil is next to him on the ground, and Crowley missed the part when he knelt down. “You have no idea what you’re actually saying aloud, do you?”

“Words?”

“For heaven’s sake.” Israfil shakes his head. “Brother, you should have said something. We could have balanced this out—”

“And you’d have fallen on your face if I’d let you do something that bloody stupid,” Crowley says. “Take a closer look, Brother.”

Israfil rests his hand on Crowley’s forehead and then hisses. “Oh.” Then he touches his ear-piece. “Gabriel, when you used your sword earlier this morning, did you save my idiot sibling from dying?” Lucy sucks in a surprised breath, but doesn’t allow the expression to touch her features.

Gabriel doesn’t hesitate to answer, the wanker. “Yes. I did what I could in terms of restoration, but I’m not a Healer.”

“You nearly _what_?” Not-Jane explodes. “I know you’re using the word dying on purpose, because dying isn’t discorporating! What did you do?”

“Thanks so much for telling _everyone_,” Crowley says to Israfil. Aziraphale is going to kill him. The only reason he’s not being yelled at already is because Aziraphale likes to verbally slaughter Crowley in person. “Panicking this lot will help so much.”

“I’m not panicking them, because you’re not going to die. You’re just…” Israfil grinds his teeth. “What my brother did, Jane, is to continue to pull on resources he doesn’t currently have until his corporation did the sensible thing and made him lose consciousness. In terms of how we use energy, how we exist, he’s literally surviving off of fumes and spite.”

Crowley swallows and thinks watering his corporation might’ve been a good idea, too, or maybe at least drinking a coffee or three. “Mostly the spite, to be honest.”

“Oh, so bad habits really are genetic,” Donna comments.

“Oi, you!”

Crowley isn’t certain if that was the middle Doctor or the youngest one. “I did tell you I was exhausted. More than once. So before anyone tries to say I didn’t tell you, I totally did. So…there.” He tries to recall the specifics, but the memories remain hazy. “All right, I know I told _someone_.”

“You did, but I’m still going to be upset about it, Crowley.” Oh, Aziraphale is starting things off with _guilt_. Grand. “And no—no, no, no! If there are no shutters for the windows, then we’ll simply have to make certain this building acquires them!”

“You need to rest, Brother. You need to sleep, in a bed, for at least a week.” Israfil sighs. “And we don’t have time.”

“Yeah, but someone owes me a favor.” Crowley looks at Lucy, who raises both eyebrows. “Right?”

“Hmm.” Lucy thinks about it. “Yes, but I strongly suggest you not give up your favor. There are two who are one involved, as well. For one to give up their favor is for the other to retain it.”

“That’s true; I haven’t used any kind of Celestial favor for anything,” Not-Jane realizes. “Because bratling youngest me didn’t have it anymore.”

“Look, I’m younger than the other version of us by what, six years? Knock off with the bratling nonsense,” the youngest Doctor says. “Lucy, how do I call in this favor, and what can I do with it?”

“You ask for your favor with my proper name and the proper words. Titles are unnecessary. The boundaries are…” Lucy hesitates. “They are unknown. It isn’t something I can test; I can only grant a favor and do what is asked of me. It doesn’t work in reverse.” She glances down at Crowley. “Since you seem not to have been given any sort of user’s manual, as the parlance goes, it comes with being the holder of a _dominion_.”

Crowley and Israfil stare at each other. “I feel stupid right now,” Crowley says. “Do you feel stupid?”

“I feel exceptionally daft. I _did_ know that. I’d forgotten it, though,” Israfil replies. “Being dead for thousands of years really isn’t helpful when it comes to retaining memories.”

“Because the Earth is your dominion,” Mickey says through the comm. “I could totally ask you for a favor, couldn’t I, Crowley?”

“None of you idiots get any bright ideas. Right now my brother couldn’t grant a favor even if it was to literally save his own life,” Israfil retorts. “Besides, I don’t think the separate dominions work in the same manner when it comes to something like favors.”

“Lucifer,” the youngest Doctor says, gaining her attention. “Can you restore Crowley to the energy level he had at the start of things? Because that’s my favor.”

“Please study contract law,” Crowley begs his kid. Then he stares at Lucy, who is similarly wide-eyed. “Oh, fuck.” The energy he had at the start was the beginning of Creation. He’ll be fine with getting that energy back, but his corporation will probably be fried to ash.

Lucy purses her lips and then makes a decision. “Take your brother’s hand. Israfil is also tiring. If you balance this between the two of you, it shouldn’t be overwhelming.”

“I said the start of things, didn’t I? Oh, bloody hell.” The youngest Doctor sounds like he might’ve just hit his head on something. “That’s the wrong sort of start. I’m an idiot.”

Not-Jane sounds amused. “Trust me, we get better at words. Not much choice in the matter, really.”

“Oh, well, that’s something to look forward to,” the middle Doctor mutters.

“You miss out on that part, sorry not sorry! Also, neither of you are the age you claim because we don’t bloody remember how old we are right then!” Not-Jane chirps.

“Do _you_ know, then?” the youngest Doctor asks. “Because I’ve just been estimating.”

“No idea,” Not-Jane admits. “I just know how old I am right now, and I needed another Time Lord to tell me because I wasn’t really paying attention anymore.”

“Time wars fuck you up. Good to know.” Crowley grips Israfil’s hands and nods at Lucy. “Ready. Please do not fry us.”

Lucy smirks at him. “I’d be more concerned about the two of you doing so to me.”

It’s instinct that makes him close his eyes. Easier to concentrate, easier to feel what’s coming in, inexorable as the tide.

To Lucy’s credit, it’s not a bloody tsunami. It’s a steady, stable flow of energy. Crowley does the smart thing; he hands every single bit of it off to Israfil until his brother can’t accept anything else without burning, because this isn’t over. If their corporations really can’t handle it, Crowley is the one the evacuation efforts can afford to lose. Israfil has ingratiated himself in with the medical teams so well that they’d probably panic without him.

It takes a surprisingly long time for Crowley to feel like he’s taking on too much. How long has he been running on fumes and spite, anyway? Was it just this rubbish with Samael, or is this left over from the Not-Apocalypse?

Fucking bloody hell, is this a lack that’s still left over from _Falling?_

When it passes the balance point, it finally starts to burn. Crowley starts shoving energy into random ethereal dimensional pockets. Lucy’s almost done, or Israfil would be panicking—but the grip on Crowley’s hands hasn’t tightened. Almost there. Almost…

Crowley opens his eyes, gasping. “Fucking shit, my teeth are ringing!”

Israfil grins. “You’re glowing.”

“So are you. Might wanna do something about that.” Crowley frowns. “This is too much for me to just wave off. I need to _use_-use this, right now.”

Israfil gathers up the bit of extra energy that’s causing his skin and eyes to glow and holds it out. “Then take this with you. Our next stop is supposed to be another care home. I don’t exactly want to send any of that lot off too early by startling them.”

Crowley takes that small bit of energy in his hand, studying the glowing ball and its swirling colors. Then he looks directly up. “Hey, you remember when this planet had two moons?”

“When it had two _what?_” someone squawks, but Crowley teleports just afterwards. He’s in space, visiting it like he had been during the last uncontrollable “Christmas tree” event last night. Dimensional side-stepping, or something. He’s not sure he recalls exactly what it’s called. He just remembers that it enables him to be out here in a physical form without immediately discorporating.

This time, at least, he bloody well did it on purpose. Probably without the dramatics, too, which is a shame. Those are fun.

Crowley crosses his arms so that he can prop up his chin on his hand, studying the orbit of the Earth, the orbit of the moon, and a ridiculous amount of space rubbish. “Y’know, I’ve read about this, but I didn’t think it was that bad. Do I need to hang a No Littering sign up here? Bloody idiots.”

Then again, he does need to start somewhere. What are the humans going to do, complain that he stole their space rubbish?

He glances further away, where the hinted path of another orbiting body is almost gone. The second moon had been further away, a supplement to the tidal forces instead of a chaotic influence. He can’t change that, though it leaves his idea a bit more exposed than he’d prefer.

Maybe it won’t matter? The first moon is a cratered rock for a reason. Its core attracts the sort of things that would make a literal impact on the Earth.

Usually. It usually does. Tunguska is definitely one of the exceptions. Also, it wasn’t his fault.

Pink. The old second moon had looked sort of pink from the ground, hadn’t it? Crowley isn’t going to repeat the idea or anything, but it’s nice to be able to remember it.

He’s going for something much more ambitious. Besides, there’s no point in fucking with the entire Earth’s view of the universe unless he’s going to do it _well_.

He sounds like Aziraphale. Not that his angelic bastard is wrong.

Crowley steals all of that debris, the metal and plastics and whatever else doesn’t belong in orbit around the Earth, dead satellites included. He separates all of it into its component elements: bits of corroded iron and silver, smaller amounts of gold and platinum, a _lot_ of aluminum, titanium, chromium, carbon, iron, oxygen reclaimed from a few oxides, silicon. It’s a treasure trove for a builder, the means to make almost anything in the universe. Even the plastic reduced back to its original form is useful.

He’s been thinking about this since the space race faltered and fell behind, budgets redirected. All of the humans’ magnificent progress in space stagnated while technology on the planet jumped ahead. Not that the technology leap on the ground is a bad thing, but Crowley always felt like it was meant to be both. Then global warming kicked up the heat, literally, and changed its name to climate change in a bid to get stupid people with money to pay attention.

He doesn’t want another lifeless rock hanging above his head at night. He wants inspiration. He wants them to look up at the stars again, all of humanity instead of just a stubborn, brilliant few. He wants them to dream of an achievable goal: another astronomical body capable of supporting life, right in their own cosmic back yard.

The best part is that Crowley can do it without breaking any fixed points in time. The Earth is supposed to have two moons, anyway.

Crowley retrieves all of the excess energy he stuffed into those pocket dimensions and calls all of his new building material over to the old orbital path. Then he thinks about size and nudges it further back. No sense disrupting the current moon’s orbit. This way it’s close enough to be seen with the naked eye, but not so far away that it could fall out of orbit and drift away. Mars or Jupiter would try to steal it, the thieving bastards.

If you’re going to make a living moon instead of a dead rock, it needs a spinning core. It needs life that isn’t made of Racnoss. It needs heat and fire that will learn to rise, hydrogen that will learn to bond with oxygen, nitrogen to encourage life, carbon and silicon to build up layers of sediment until land blooms across the waters.

He was wrong. He hadn’t forgotten how to do this, exactly. More like he’d been too tired to remember.

Crowley pulls a face. Oh. That explains the Disposable calling him a lord. He’d actually liked not remembering that. He can’t even get out of it; it means he’s politically balanced between Above and Below.

Mum is _definitely_ laughing at him.

He regards the coalescing matter. The breath of the universe is a given; it never stops flowing. What is he—?

Crowley snaps his fingers and blows across his palm, sending tiny shimmering embers of life into what he’s made. Spark of creation. Useful, that. Then he gives Time around his little gift a nudge, speeding it up. Not tens of thousands of years or millions or an epoch, nope. He wants to see results a lot sooner than that.

Once he’s satisfied every other step will take care of itself, Crowley teleports back down to Earth, appearing on the grass next to Israfil and Lucy. Then he glances down and fixes his clothes, brushing off a bit of cosmic dust before he straightens his glasses. “That was fun.”

Israfil bursts into laughter and wraps his arm around Crowley’s shoulders. “Was it?”

“Totally was. Best pranks always have the best payout, and this one is not only long-term, it’s useful.”

“What the hell did you just go and do?” the youngest Doctor asks in faint disbelief.

Crowley glances at Lucy, who gives Crowley an approving look. “Built an Ark. Well, a moon, but there’s not much difference. Oh, someone remind me in about a decade to go slow things down up there, I sort of left it in fast-forward.”

“You—you went and—you—” Gabriel takes a deep breath. “CROWLEY!”

Crowley helps to support Israfil when he doesn’t stop giggling. Hospitals are stressful; his brother needs a moment. “What? It’s not like this planet never had a second moon. It just sort of lost the second one.”

“So you put it back exactly the same as it was?” Uriel asks.

“Why would I wanna do that?” Crowley responds. Uriel grinds her teeth together so hard he can hear it through the comm. Awesome.

“You built a moon,” Donna says.

Crowley smiles. “Yep.”

“Just so we’re clear: you built a bloody _moon_,” Donna repeats.

“Blame someone else’s badly worded favor.” Crowley wonders how long humans will regard the second moon in the sky the way they do the recreated continent of Atlantis—by politely pretending it’s not there.

* * * *

The Doctor pulls her mobile from her coat, glances at the screen, and answers it. “Hallo!”

“Grrk.”

“You might wanna take a breath, there.”

“You—hnngh.”

“Breathe first, then words,” the Doctor reminds O, leaning back in her chair.

“Celestials,” O finally gasps out.

“Yep, that’s certainly what they are.”

“THEY PUT ANOTHER SODDING MOON UP THERE!” O finally rallies. “YOU COULD HAVE WARNED ME!”

The Doctor smiles. “Yeah, I really could have, but where’s the fun in that?”

“I hate you,” O hisses, and rings off.

“No, you don’t,” she murmurs, and swaps back over to messenger. That was so worth it.

**16:45 Doctor:** I always thought Earth’s second moon was artificial. Also, built a millennium from now, but eh, details.

**16:45 Crowley:** just built its core out of deconstructed space rubbish. probably a common misconception

**16:45 Doctor:** You cleaned up Earth’s orbit?

**16:47 Crowley: **it needed it, but i’m not playing janitor again. next time humans trash their own upper atmosphere, someone else can fix it

**16:47 Doctor: **Still, though. You built Earth another moon. Sure that’s a good idea, given what happened to the last one?

**16:48 Crowley:** if this thing lands on Atlantis Take Two i’m going to be so bloody pissed off

**16:48 Doctor:** I did notice that New Atlantis is populated by humans and not by the Silurians that were wiped out last time. How’d that happen?

**16:51 Crowley:** Book Girl gave an Antichrist a bunch of rubbish new age mags and the Antichrist decided they were entirely accurate

**16:52 Crowley:** being fair, he got the continent right

**16:52 Crowley**: just not so much on the population

**16:52 Crowley:** they were bloody squatters, anyway

The Doctor frowns. Nope, too impatient for texting. She rings her dad and waits until he picks up. “What?” Crowley barks. “You aren’t calling to actually complain about the moon, are you? Because that’s what everyone else is doing.”

She grins. “No, I think it’s funny. The orbit’s too far out to cause any problems. Ocean might be a smidge more active on occasion, but nothing catastrophic or anything. It’s just that you called the Silurians squatters, and now you’ve gone and slapped the curiosity button. Which is way better than actually being slapped.”

Crowley laughs. “Yeah, it is. Ask me again when we’re not yelling at people that yes, they really do have to leave London. Call back about ten minutes after six and I’ll tell you about it.”

“You think they’ll feed your lot anything decent?” the Doctor asks. “We’re having a curry later.”

“They’re setting up in an airport; the food’s automatically cursed. Not so much on the coffee, at least.”

* * * *

Aziraphale is exhausted, bone weary, but he is also feeling the intense satisfaction of a job done well. They’re not done securing London’s many archives and museums, of course, but they accomplished a great deal.

“How was your day, Gabriel?” Aziraphale doesn’t even realize who he was asking the question of—with well-intentioned politeness—until after the words escape his mouth.

Gabriel appears to be too exhausted to recognize the significance. “Stopped a riot. A fire. Another riot. Why are humans so violent when they’re in danger?”

Aziraphale hesitates before answering with the truth. “Because fear can make people do awful, dreadful things that they otherwise would never even contemplate.”

Gabriel pauses mid-stride as their assigned teams wander off to discover what’s been put together for dinner. “Was that specific in regards to…to last August?”

“To your attempt to murder with hellfire?” Aziraphale clarifies, and Gabriel winces. “No, it wasn’t, but it is still true, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” Gabriel sighs heavily. “It is. For that…I should have apologized for that moment long ago. I’m sorry, Aziraphale.”

Aziraphale shakes his head and gives the archangel enough of a nudge that he continues walking, falling into step with Aziraphale. “I’d rather receive a genuine apology borne of understanding, Gabriel. I don’t mind how long it takes. I have a rather unlimited amount of time on my hands, and so do you.”

They step through the terminal’s automatic doors, unveiling chaos personified. “Good heavens,” Gabriel mutters.

“Indeed.” Aziraphale didn’t realize there were so many volunteers involved in the evacuation, too focused as he was on securing buildings. Even dividing them all into half-hour visits for dinner has still left Heathrow packed with warm bodies.

_Aziraphale_.

Aziraphale lifts his head. He can’t see Crowley, but can sense him easily enough. “This way. I believe Crowley might have done us a favor.”

They take an escalator up to the first storey, collecting Raguel as they go. The other archangel looks a bit frazzled, and her hair has slipped from bright silver to sparkling purple. Her gown has been swapped out for a silver blouse and black, flowing trousers.

“Are you all right, sister?” Gabriel asks.

Raguel groans. “It’s been too long since I’ve spent long periods of time among humans. I want to hide from everything in existence right now.”

“I sort of feel similarly,” Aziraphale admits. He might not have been directly involved in the evacuation of London’s citizens, but there had still been people, everywhere, all the time. Long strings of vehicles slowly creeping their way out of the city along the approved civilian byways. Caravans of various types of transports proceeding a bit more swiftly along the ESCG-only roadways. Parades of people hiking along approved routes so the volunteers could keep an eye on them. Stubborn humans who refused to leave being carted off to military transports—not to be arrested, but simply detained long enough to get them away from the Racnoss. Trains rumbling by on the regular, filled with people on their way to cities beyond the M25’s boundaries.

They find Crowley lounging in front of a terminal, surrounded by empty seating. Israfil is stretched out along the seats next to his brother, his head pillowed on Crowley’s lap with a white doctor’s coat bunched up over his eyes.

“What happened?” Raguel asks. “Because Israfil looks like I feel. After Lucy’s restoration favor, I wouldn’t think that possible.”

Crowley lowers the iPad he’s holding. “They encountered a few care homes and rehabilitation centers that weren’t being entirely honest with NHS about how well they treated their patients. I told Israfil that a nap would be a lot more useful right now than killing the incompetent. Besides, Ba‘al is cursing them on Israfil’s behalf, so, waste of time really.”

“I almost feel sorry for them.” Aziraphale retrieves his mobile. He is terrible at texting, but figured out “mass text” after a great deal of foul language. With a single message sent, the others will know where to find them. “I take it you’ve somehow arranged for takeaway, as you’ve called us away from the food downstairs.”

Crowley waits until Gabriel and Raguel have collapsed into their chosen seats. Aziraphale seats himself properly, placing himself across from Crowley. “I bribed Phillips to retrieve enough food to feed all of us, coffee and tea included. Sent her ahead so she’d get here about ten minutes before six. Gave her a chance to pull it off before the hordes descended.”

“How on Earth did you bribe a human to do such a thing?” Raguel wants to know, though her head is slumped backwards and her eyes are closed.

“Traded her for something she’s always wanted but never received,” Crowley replies. “That’s usually how bribery works, Raguel.”

The agent that Crowley refers to as Phillips arrives at their claimed terminal area before anyone else. She’s pushing a silver catering cart and pulling another, a grimly pleased expression on her face. Aziraphale thinks she looks rather like an adult version of Pepper, one who learned to be yet more terrifying, and wonders if they’re related.

“Awesome. You’ve got yours, right?” Crowley asks as Phillips parks both carts, which are well stocked with covered plastic dishes, styrofoam containers, a selection of steaming teas and hot coffees slathered in whipped cream, plastic cutlery, and packaged condiments.

Phillips shakes her head. “I’m grabbing a coffee before we head out again at 18:30, but I filled up on crisps at that corner store we visited a while ago. Not the healthiest thing in the world, but grease and starch are two of the world’s great wonders for keeping you on your feet.”

“And the salt,” Crowley points out. “As long as you’re not dehydrated, anyway. See you downstairs in a bit, then.”

“Off to catnap, me.” Phillips pauses and stares at Crowley. “You weren’t kidding about that, were you? It’s really going to happen. You’ll make sure of it.”

“How do you know I haven’t already done it?” Crowley counters, grinning and revealing his sharpened incisors. He used to do that to humans to intimidate them, but sometimes Crowley’s fangs present themselves because he’s exceptionally pleased with himself.

Phillips is unfazed; Aziraphale is now very fond of her. “I’m off-shift for six hours as soon as London is empty, but I’d hate for her to be alone that long,” Phillips says. “I’ll trust you on this, though. If you don’t follow through, I’ll beat you to death with a catering cart.”

“Yep.” Crowley’s expression twitches after Phillips walks away. “That’d be a new way to die. Fortunately, not happening.”

“What did you bribe her with Crowley?” Aziraphale asks, though he doesn’t mind in the slightest. Phillips’ willingness to be bribed means he does not have to fight his way through a crowd and all of that terrible _noise_ just to have a nibble. He stands up and goes to investigate what Phillips brought them.

“Ever since she was a kid, Phillips wanted a Golden Retriever puppy and all the associated dog stuff. Then grew up, got a job, and moved to a flat that doesn’t allow pets. Let’s just say her flat allows pets now.”

“I like dogs,” Gabriel says, looking rather vacant. Oh, dear.

Aziraphale picks up one of the coffees that smells like cinnamon and holds it out. “Gabriel?”

Gabriel’s expression clears enough for him to frown at the drink. “What is it?”

“It’s coffee with a hell of a lot of dairy in it. Drink it; you need it.” Crowley lifts his glasses for a brief moment. “Don’t make me do the Healer voice thing at you.”

Gabriel promptly accepts the coffee. “That will be quite unnecessary, thank you.”

Crowley looks at Aziraphale and raises an eyebrow. _Progress, angel?_

_I’ll call it true progress if he drinks it,_ Aziraphale replies, and goes back to exploring their options. None of it is really to his taste, but needs must, and he’s certainly eaten worse over the course of six millennia. “Why are there no people up there?” Aziraphale asks aloud, and then amends himself when he sees a few humans ride up the escalators and wander off in the opposite direction. “Well, mostly no people.”

“Heathrow ran out of planes for evacuating people, is what I heard.” Crowley glances in the direction of the large glass windows to look at the very empty sets of runways. “Ghost airports are a lot worse than ghost towns, aren’t they?”

“Please don’t be spooky right now, dear. London is getting rather empty, and it’s unsettling.”

Saraquel, Michael, and Uriel arrive in a cluster. Uriel is almost expressionless, as always, and Michael doesn’t appear tired. Saraquel, on the other hand, is wired. Before Crowley can suggest making things worse by giving a wired archangel a coffee, Aziraphale hands Saraquel a cup of tea.

Lucy, Ba‘al, Martha, Mickey, and the Doctor wander in late, nearly ten minutes after six o’clock. “People are terrible,” Mickey announces, dropping down onto a chair to impersonate a dead fish. “Jack won’t make it. He’s stuck out in Brentford.”

“What happened in Brentford?” Martha asks, wrinkling her nose over the contents of her styrofoam takeaway container. “Is all airport food cursed?”

“Yes,” Ba‘al, Lucy, and Crowley say at the same time. “Not it,” Crowley adds. “Not actually sure who did that one.”

“Some sort of traffic accident,” Mickey answers without opening his eyes. Aziraphale wonders if he, like Israfil, plans to sleep through their brief dinner break.

“That was Pazuzu. He lost his temper when his flight was overbooked, and, well…” Lucy sighs. “I used to rather like lurking in airline terminals. They often bring out the worst in humanity. Then airport security increased, and it just wasn’t fun any longer. You can’t pick and choose among the masses when _everyone_ is already miserable.”

The Doctor looks vastly amused, and not the slightest bit tired. Disheveled, yes, but not tired. “So what you’re saying is that airport security has a fringe benefit of saving everyone from demons.”

Lucy frowns and glares at Crowley. “Didn’t you have something to do with the increase in airline security checkpoints?”

“No, because I’ve never flown a jet liner into a skyscraper,” Crowley retorts. “Besides, except for that experiment with the M25, I always stayed away from mass transit. Gremlins hate it when you fuck with their territory.”

Aziraphale mimics Martha’s wrinkled nose as he stabs at a bit of questionable beef and his plastic fork tines shatter. “I thought gremlins were all about moving parts.”

“Yeah, and the fastest way to find moving parts is in transportation,” Crowley answers, and then snaps his fingers. Aziraphale is suddenly confronting a far more appetizing meal.

“Thank you, dear,” Aziraphale says in relief, gratefully inhaling a container of fresh maki and nigiri as fast as good manners allow. “I take it you’re feeling better.”

“Angel, I haven’t felt this good since before the War.”

That gains Michael’s attention. Aziraphale is pleased to see that his food was not the only container to be improved, though the Doctor is studying a bit of grilled aubergine with the complete fashion of someone who is still trying to figure out the miraculous transmutation of matter. “You mean the first war. Our War,” Michael says. “Don’t you?”

“I do, yeah.” Crowley glances down when Israfil stirs and doesn’t start talking again until his brother settles. “Fuck, what were they doing in those care homes, anyway?” he wonders. “Anyway, I dunno why those reserves never came back, but that badly worded favor wasn’t so badly worded, after all.”

“Do you know why, Lucy?” the Doctor asks. “You being in the, er, position you’re in.”

Lucy smiles at the Doctor. “You really don’t want to say it, do you? You’re darling.”

The Doctor shrugs with his free hand, the gesture almost exactly like one Crowley perfected centuries ago. “I’m having a very bad decade.”

“Understatement,” Crowley mutters.

“No, I don’t know why,” Lucy replies. “Even his brief time in Megiddo shouldn’t have caused such a thing.”

“Speaking of energy and whatnot.” The Doctor frowns at Crowley. “You put the second moon back into orbit.”

Aziraphale hasn’t decided yet how he feels about the random placement of new astronomical bodies. It feels rather hypocritical to be angry about it, considering he did not say anything judgmental to Adam for forgetting to fix Atlantis. “Was that really necessary, dear?”

“I didn’t put the same moon back. That’s like asking for it to be bad luck or something. I made a new one,” Crowley corrects. “Much more fun that way. Hold on.” He pulls out his ringing mobile. “You’re late,” he says to answer it, putting the mobile on speaker.

“I was busy stuffin’ curry into my face like a starving thing, shut up,” Not-Jane responds. “Am I on speaker?”

“Hello!” Aziraphale greets her, smiling even if she can’t see it. No need to be rude, after all.

“Trade you the curry for the aubergine,” the Doctor says.

“Ooooh. Yes, exactly that, can we do that?”

Crowley rolls his eyes and snaps his fingers again. The containers swap out; the air suddenly smells like fragrant coconut curry. “Happy now?”

Someone else on Not-Jane’s side of the call sounds as if they’re choking. “Your food just…you know, I’ve been watching those ear-pieces disappear, I can handle this. This is fine,” Graham says.

“I want a teleporter,” says Wilf. “Dead useful, that. Why on earth would you wanna eat an eggplant over a good curry?”

“Do not mock the aubergine, Wilf,” Not-Jane warns. “Crowley! You promised me a story thing about Atlantis Take One.”

“An’ I _really_ wanna hear this,” Donna says.

“Oi, is it all of you?” Crowley asks.

“Of course it is. I wanted a nosh and a sit-down, anyway,” Rose answers. “Hello! Thanks for the chips, whoever it was who did that.”

_Wasn’t me,_ Crowley mouths, looking at Aziraphale thoughtfully. Aziraphale shrugs; he hadn’t thought of doing so, either.

“A bloody moon. A _moon_,” the youngest Doctor mutters. “But yes, nosh, seemed like an ideal time, especially when the food just sort of appears out of nowhere.”

“We never learn our lesson about eating food that appears out of nowhere, do we?” the Doctor asks, though Aziraphale notes he’s still eating the curry.

“Not confirming or denying that,” Not-Jane replies. “Silurians as squatters, c’mon!”

“Oh, they’d love to hear that,” the youngest Doctor comments at once. “Except the complete opposite.”

“Exactly so,” Michael says, annoyed. “We told them that this planet was marked for another purpose and they were going to have to find themselves another overly warm colony world, but did they listen? Of course not. We even told them about the scheduled climate change, and still they wouldn’t leave!”

“Backing up a bit.” Crowley nudges his glasses back into whatever he feels is the proper alignment. “When this planet was still a prehistoric nightmare—nice and warm, but not really worth trying to fend off the bloody giant mosquitos—a bunch of colonists turned up while our backs were turned and decided, oh, hey, we live here now, and they brought their pets with them. Eight generations later, they’d entirely forgotten the colonist bit and thought they were native. Do you know how hard it is to evict a stubborn species that thinks they own the place?”

“Their pets.” Mickey sits up. “You mean dinosaurs, don’t you?”

“Yep,” Crowley says, popping the P at the end. The Doctor’s expression twitches in amusing fashion.

“Wait. Wait a moment. That’s the joke?” Donna asks. “The thing with the dinosaurs being a joke. That’s the whole joke?”

“That they’re not native in the slightest?” Crowley nods. “Yeah, that’s the joke.”

“That is a naff joke,” Mickey says flatly. “I mean, what’s the point?”

Crowley shrugs. “I don’t see you mucking up an entire planet’s geological history by leaving behind blatant evidence of another species that entirely buggers the fossil record, thus leaving paleontologists, archaeologists, and assorted geologists with no clear idea of what they’re actually looking at.”

“If the foreign dinosaur fossils are still lyin’ about, then the Silurians who didn’t make it underground…” Donna trails off expectantly.

“Are being mistaken as a branch species of human-like hominids?” Crowley grins. “Yeah, they are. Those facial reconstruction attempts look bloody _bizarre_.”

Michael tilts their head in consideration. “I had been wondering why Father left everything that way. He always said it was a joke, but wouldn’t elaborate.”

“Honestly, I still can’t believe the Silurians wouldn’t just _leave_,” Israfil mumbles from beneath the bundle of white coat. “S’not like we didn’t have another suitable planet available. Free blasted transportation, even!”

“I’m still amused that they’re so stubborn they’d rather live near the Earth’s core than admit maybe a warmer climate might not be the better option,” Saraquel says. “That takes a special level of stubborn.”

“Madam Vastra is _not_ going to be amused to discover that her species isn’t native,” Not-Jane comments through a mouthful of food. Aziraphale despairs of that aspect of Crowley’s offspring, but Crowley does_ the same cursed thing_ if he gets too excited to wait until the chewing is done to say whatever is on his mind.

“Are you going to eat anything?” Crowley asks Israfil, who otherwise hasn’t moved.

“Unngh, no. Food is for stabbing.” Israfil sits up, his eyes entirely blue, his incisors too long, and—thanks to Aziraphale’s many lessons in Crowley-speak—in an exceptionally bad mood. “Just coffee.”

“I cursed them for you,” Ba‘al offers, stone-faced but for the amusement in their eyes. “I kept your preferences in mind, of course.”

“Of course. Good. Let’s go curse them again,” Israfil growls.

Crowley glances at Israfil after handing him a coffee. “How about I tell them not to send you to any more care homes before we end up with a body count that the Racnoss can’t be blamed for?”

Israfil snatches the coffee with both hands and pries off the lid. “Fine.”

“What’s the rest of the Atlantis Take One bit?” the Doctor wants to know. “I know the second moon’s orbit destabilized and caused a mass extinction event when part of it landed on the Yucatan Peninsula. How did another piece strike Atlantis without wiping out all life on Earth?”

“Because the Silurians on that continent tried to destroy that very large inbound chunk of rock.” Saraquel grimaces. “Except they miscalculated. Their weapon broke up the rock, yes, but then it, er…there was an element within the moon that they hadn’t accounted for. The weapon, it bounced.”

“He means that they disintegrated themselves.” It’s one of the very rare moments in which Uriel’s voice isn’t toneless. She sounds as if she feels genuine regret for the Silurians’ fate. “And the continent they lived upon.”

“Oh.” The Doctor tilts his head. “Well, that must’ve bloody hurt.”

“Not for very long, it didn’t,” the youngest Doctor says. “The second moon, though. No one knows why its orbit destabilized.”

Lucy coughs. “That was, er, me. I sort of hit it.”

“With what? A planet?” Rose asks.

“No…I meant me. I literally hit it,” Lucy admits. Aziraphale is startled to see a faint blush on her cheeks. “I was in a bad mood, and I punched it, and our Creator had wanted a climate shift towards cooler temperatures on this planet anyway…”

Donna snickers. “What’d the moon go an’ do to deserve that, then?”

“Nothing.” Lucy crosses her arms. “It was just…in the way, is all.”

“Naamah had just dumped her for Samael.” Crowley ducks to the side when Lucy’s arm swings out, her fingers ending in sharp claws. “Oi, it’s not my fault she’s got bad taste!” That seems to appease Lucy; her claws return to being normal, human-appearing fingertips.

Gabriel has a smile on his face, but it’s sitting oddly, as if he doesn’t quite know what to do with it. “I’d forgotten about that.”

Crowley points at Lucy with his coffee cup. “Speaking of which, don’t hit my new moon. Or the one we’ve already got, come to think of it.”

“So noted, Healer,” Lucy replies.

“Adam said he’d put Atlantis back, but he’d gotten it wrong.” Donna sighs through the mobile. “Poor kiddo. Humans instead of Silurians. Not that humanity would’ve handled a new continent full of Silurians very well.”

“Adam and Anathema both are going to be rather ecstatic when they find out there really are lizard people living in the center of the Earth, you know,” Aziraphale says to Crowley.

“Yeah, I kind of haven’t mentioned that to Adam for a reason, mostly because he might try to go find them. Anyway, that’s what I meant earlier when I said that Adam got the shape of the continent right, but not the people,” Crowley says. “I’ve seen that lot of New Atlanteans interviewed on rubbish daytime talk shows. Part of the reason most everyone is still sailing around Atlantis Take Two and pretending it’s not there is because that lot is bloody _odd_. It’s like someone took the idea of the Athenian Greeks, mixed in the idea of Sparta but left out the killing all your enemies part, added some Roman history for color, threw in a dash of antiquated diving gear, and hoped for the best. Which to be fair, that’s pretty much what Adam did.”

The Doctor frowns at them, his food forgotten. “I didn’t think Celestial equated to godlike powers. Everything I’ve seen you lot do can be explained by science and mathematics and the way the universe works. You make it sounds as if this boy, Adam, was literally creating things out of nothing.”

Crowley eyes Lucy. “This is why you do not give an eleven-year-old kid all the powers of Creation, even if it’s just for a couple of days.”

“Atlantis is funny,” is Lucy’s only response.

“Atlantis is hilarious, but that’s beside the point.” Crowley looks back at the Doctor. “That’s because he was. Literally. A friend of ours shoved a bunch of New Age magazines at an eleven-year-old who was about to have a very interesting weekend. Said eleven-year-old went to bed and dreamed about everything he’d read before bed, and it happened. It’s why we still have a thirty percent increase in existing rain forests that weren’t there before August last year, a lot of new rumors about alien landings and sightings, and—wait, does anyone know if Adam ever put the reactors back into the nuclear power plant at Turning Point?”

“I’m not certain. I did not bother to check,” Ba‘al says after Lucy shrugs.

“I forgot it was missing, actually,” Aziraphale admits. “There was quite a bit happening that week.”

“Turning Point is still producing electricity, though,” Not-Jane informs them. “Just checked on Graham’s mobile.”

Crowley slides his glasses down his nose and shares a look with Aziraphale. “If Turning Point is still producing electricity without a reactor, then they’re not telling anyone, and I’m just…I’m fine with leaving that alone. Completely.”

Aziraphale nods. “So am I.”

“I’m totally not gonna be able to let this go.” Not-Jane sounds far too happy. “I’m ringing off now. Ta!”

“Doc, you cannot just call a nuclear power station and ask them—” Graham is cut short when the mobile signal disconnects, leaving them without Donna, the youngest Doctor, and Rose, as well.

There is a moment of odd silence. “I sort of want to call them, too,” Mickey says.

The Doctor flops back in his seat, tie askew. “Blimey, so do I.”

Crowley glances at his watch when it beeps once. “That’s our five minute warning. Time to clean up and go yell at London again.”

Aziraphale does the honors of sending all of their plastic waste off into the ether to unravel into nothing. Israfil clings to his cup of coffee and glares, as if daring anyone to take it. Crowley sighs, miracling everyone a refill before they head for the escalators.

Somehow, Aziraphale and Crowley end up at the rear of the line for returning to the ground floor of the terminal. Crowley slips off his glasses, grins at Aziraphale, and then suddenly, they’re somewhere else. “Crowley!” Aziraphale turns around in a pitch-black space. “I can’t see in the dark, my dear.”

Crowley snaps his fingers and an overhead light comes on, revealing a fairly large storage cupboard filled with nonperishable restaurant supplies. “Better?”

“Yes. Why did you do that?”

“Because I’ve never snogged anyone in a cupboard before,” Crowley replies. “You?”

“Oh! Uhm—er—no. No, I haven’t.” Aziraphale pauses to think on it. “Yes, I’m certain. I have not.”

“Good.” Crowley steps forward and presses his face against Aziraphale’s neck, making Aziraphale gasp at the unexpectedness of it. “I feel like I’m doing this without you,” Crowley murmurs against his skin. “Absolutely hate it.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale wraps his arms around Crowley and rests his chin atop Crowley’s hair. “Darling, you’re not. We’re all using these silly ear-pieces so we can hear each other, we’re in the same city, and everything is going well. Absolutely nothing is allowed to go wrong; I forbid it.”

Crowley sighs against him. “Hope Someone’s listening, then.”

Aziraphale frowns as words he’s been sitting on all afternoon come gushing out. “Crowley, you built a _moon!_ A moon! You just can’t just do that to humanity!”

Crowley’s shoulders tense, as if he’s expecting a blow. “I needed to do something with all of that energy,” he mumbles. “Besides, why do you think I called it an Ark?”

“You—” Aziraphale’s irritation is already draining out of him. He doesn’t want Crowley to think he’s truly angry. Not today of all days, especially. “An Ark?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“You mean that a second moon is forming that will be capable of supporting life. Human life,” Aziraphale clarifies.

Crowley nods without looking up. “In about a decade or so, anyway.”

“I see.” Aziraphale considers it before he runs his fingers through the long strands of Crowley’s hair. That is exactly the sort of thing Crowley would do, and…and he may well be right to do so. Adam’s remaining bits of restructuring are useful, but Australia has still dealt with horrific wildfires this year that all but broke Aziraphale’s heart. Not even miraculous intervention was enough to stop them.

Crowley has only ever wanted to help humanity, even when he was being ordered to tempt them to damnation.

“You know, dear, this doesn’t actually count as snogging,” Aziraphale says.

Crowley raises his head. “I wasn’t sure you’d want to. Being irresponsible for two minutes is a bit taxing.”

Aziraphale lifts his chin and puts on his best angelic bastard expression, which Crowley adores. “I suppose I shall simply have to suffer, then.”

“Sssuffering,” Crowley hisses, chuckling. “Sure.”

By the time Aziraphale is done with Crowley, the dear is gasping for breath, his pupils blown wide. “Does that satisfy your bucket list, my dear?”

“Sure. Yeah. Can’t think right now, you sssmell amazing.” Crowley takes a breath with his mouth partially open, like a cat trying to identify a particular scent. Crowley is doing the opposite, attempting to cleanse his palate. Then he ruins the effort by licking the side of Aziraphale’s neck.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale laughs. That was Crowley's forked tongue instead of his human one, which ought to be classed as a weapon for its effectiveness. Aziraphale has_ thoughts _about that tongue that would probably cause his dear Crowley to short-circuit. “Are you ready, love?”

“Yeah. Almost.” Crowley gives him an odd look, brow furrowed, his eyes searching Aziraphale’s face as if he’s looking for something in particular. “You didn’t find anything strange today, did you?”

“Aside from what we're doing in London? Absolutely not,” Aziraphale replies in confusion. “Why?”

“Eh, s’not important.” Crowley takes Aziraphale’s hand and teleports them to the terminal’s ground floor entrance, briefly masking their arrival so the humans won’t panic about their sudden appearance. “I’ll see you later, angel. Yeah?”

“Of course you will,” Aziraphale promises. “I love you, my dear.”

“Nngk.” Crowley swallows visibly, staring at Aziraphale with wide eyes, before he slips his glasses back on. “Love you too, you bloody cheat.” Crowley walks off and finds Phillips almost at once, muttering something about _Too bloody subtle_ under his breath. Aziraphale frowns, wondering what in God’s Name he’s missed this time.


	32. Viking Funeral

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Darling, if I get myself eaten by Racnoss, you’d better give me a really nice funeral. I won’t haunt you if you don’t turn it into the biggest fucking party since the Vikings decided to stop being fun and turned civilized!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by @mrsstanley of awesome and @norcumii of amazing <3

06:00 Sunday, 24th May

Ilford, London, UK

It was a matter of complete coincidence, if you believed in that sort of thing. Crowley didn’t; God had a bloody sense of humor, after all. Regardless, two small children changed everything about the way in which Sunday _might_ have gone.

If Pittsfield’s team had been checking houses instead of relying on a rather expensive piece of portable x-ray equipment (that MI6’s higher-ups wouldn’t stop fretting over), the children would have been found. If Pittsfield’s superiors hadn’t approved of them skipping full inspections in order to save time. If Pittsfield’s team had a Celestial with them, or a grim-faced Time Lord with a life-signs detector.

If, if, if.

None of those ifs were true. Instead, two children alone in a row house in Ilford had to make their own decisions.

They’re afraid. All day Saturday and all night, too, buses and vans and all sorts of military vehicles rolled by on the A12 heading east, and then they’d come around the other way again. Radio people and folks on the telly said stuff about aliens and the End Times.

Tim Lewis doesn’t know what an End Times is, but it doesn’t sound very nice. He also thinks maybe most aliens wouldn’t be so bad, but London might’ve lucked out and picked up a bad set.

The next time he shoves his head out through the curtains to peer down at the carpark , there are people for the first time in hours. “There’s army blokes coming,” Tim whispers to his sister. He’s seven. With Mum and Dad not at home, it’s his job to look after Millie.

“We should hide,” Millie suggests, clinging to her stuffed duck. “We hafta wait for Mum an’ Dad to come back.”

Tim hesitates. The army blokes are supposed to be helping everyone get out of London, but he’s seen a lot of telly programs. Not all army blokes are nice. What if this lot isn’t the nice sort? They’ve got guns and everything.

“Okay,” he agrees, and takes Millie’s hand. They go into the kitchen and hide behind the center island, resting their faces against cool copper panels.

Copper, like lead, is resistant to x-rays. Last year, their mum decided to redecorate, surrounding the kitchen island with big uncut sheets of solid copper.

Tim and Millie’s hiding spot wouldn’t have worked out very well if there hadn’t been a bit of pointless redecorating to make things look posh. Pittsfield’s team continues on their way to sweep the next house, oblivious to the two children in the row house as they pass it by.

* * * *

In the same moment that two children in Ilford make a fateful decision, an experienced soldier paired with an MI6 volunteer are in the midst of making another. Levy has his rifle up and secured against his shoulder the moment he registers the clatter of noise coming from the tunnel. Beside him, Boyle has two steady hands on her Taurus 9mm, her green eyes darting around the tunnel.

Levy presses a foot down on the pad that activates the spotlight’s auto-rotation, slowly illuminating every angle of the tunnel. Nothing should have been coming from that direction, not after Shoreditch Station was marked clear of civilians and shut down.

“What do you think?” Boyle asks in a soft voice. “Everyone heading out from Cambridge Heath Station is northbound, right?”

Levy nods. “Shouldn’t be a thing coming from the westbound line.”

Boyle takes her left hand off her weapon long enough to retrieve two clips from the back of her belt, dropping them into her jacket pocket for easy access. “Think it’s those spider things?”

“I hope not.” Levy doesn’t want to deal with spider-centaur aliens. He wants the last train behind them to finish loading and move out. The sooner they can close up this station, the happier everyone is going to be—especially the Torchwood types, whose offices are practically over their heads.

“Oh, fuck me sideways,” Boyle says in disgust, lowering her pistol.

Levy lets out a huff of relieved laughter as a large rat comes trundling forward. It was behind one of the rail e-lights at the perfect time for the bloody spotlight to miss it. “Never been so glad to see a tube rat in my entire life.”

“Right you are.” Boyle shakes out her shoulders and holsters her weapon. After another minute of fighting the adrenaline rush, Levy lowers his rifle. “Almost done. The numbers are good. Want to update our wager on when London is officially dubbed clear?”

Levy sniffs, his allergies acting up from the dust floating around in the tunnel. “10:30.”

“9:15,” Boyle counters.

“Do you know something I don’t?” Levy asks, eying her. “That’s only a bit over three hours from now. We can’t be done that fast. The logistics don’t fly.”

“The logistics might be doing exactly that,” Boyle says, and then mutters, “Literally,” under her breath.

“Bloody hell, I want to lose this wager,” Levy mutters. He’s been awake for longer stints than this, but that doesn’t mean he has to like it. Somewhere beyond the M25 is a cot with his name on it—or there will be when he’s done attacking it with a marker, anyway.

The final train departs, on its way out of London. It’s only half-full of civilians, the few who’d remained in this area. It takes about ten minutes to pack up their equipment, the worst of it being the bloody spotlights for each tunnel junction. Each set of tunnel-watching partners take a final tour, double-checking for people or bloody spider-types, before calling the all-clear.

Levy and Boyle are the last ones to ride the escalator up out of the station. A team from Torchwood performs the demolitions work that seals the station off from street level access. Then it’s on to the next station, swapping out tunnel-sitting duty with Hendricks and Rodriguez as they oversee the last departing train.

In the orange-lit darkness of that southwestern tunnel, a rat’s life comes to a sudden, terror-filled end when it’s stabbed by sharp pincers. The dying rat is still feebly struggling to escape when something it can’t see swallows it whole.

If, if, if.

* * * *

Tina Phillips is motivated to survive London’s evacuation for multiple reasons. She’ll readily admit that Reason One is to spite her parents for telling her she was being ridiculous for choosing MI5 as a valid career instead of being stock brokers, and not even the fact that she’s using all her lessons in numbers to further her career has yet to change their minds. Reason Two is because she’s so close to making it to Senior Analyst and a much-coveted paygrade increase.

Crowley, the bastard, is in the middle of giving her a third reason. He’s sitting on the bonnet of an armored transport, someone’s lost kid talking to him—a kid who’d refused to speak to anyone else.

Tina normally doesn’t deal with the people she’s helping to save. She’s in the office most of the time, and has been fine with it, but this up-close saving thing…bollocks. Tina’s going to end up transferring to Intelligence for field work, starting at the low rung again, and it’s going to be his bloody fault.

“No way,” the kid says. “I’m not brave or I wouldn’t be…y’know. Lost. Brave people don’t get lost.”

“Oh, wow, you have no idea what life was like before GPS,” Crowley responds, grinning. “My boyfriend got lost at least eight times trying to find someone’s Court once, and he’s one of the bravest types I know. Don’t tell him I told you that bit about the getting lost, though. He’s still sore about it.”

“How d’you know I’m brave?” the kid asks, lower lip trembling. Tina desperately wants the tyke to knock off with that before it gives her hormones _ideas_.

Crowley sniffs once and then lifts his sunglasses, shoving them all the way back into his hair. “Check it out. Not contacts.”

The kid peers close. “Oh, wow! Your eyes are wicked cool!”

Tina doesn’t share the kid’s opinion. She’s seen Crowley’s eyes turn entirely gold when they were threatened with gunfire from an idiot last night; it’s like staring a viper in the face.

“And that’s how I know you’re brave,” Crowley says. “Y’know how many adults would look at my eyes and think they’re terrifying?” The kid shrugs. “Pretty much all of ’em, really. I mean, costume contacts are getting more common, but adults get nervy about things that are different. S’why I wear the glasses all the time. No one wants to look at them.”

_Great_, Tina thinks. Now she feels guilty for being unnerved by her current temporary commander’s eyes.

“You showed them to me,” the kid says. “That’s brave.”

“I did, didn’t I?” Crowley pretends to think about that. “If I did something brave, looks like you owe me a bit of that yourself. What’s your name?”

“Peter!” the kid exclaims, almost bouncing in place. “Peter Oliver! From Bow, on College…” He frowns. “I don’t remember what kinda road it is, sorry.”

Tina scribbles down the kid’s information in relief. They’d only been trying to pry that out of him for the last eight minutes. She peels off the sticker next to Peter’s information and hands it over to Crowley.

“S’all right that you don’t remember. We’ll figure it out.” Crowley does _something_ to the sticker, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment. The tag with the boy’s name and borough becomes a silly cartoon rocket ship with glittering flames emerging from the end. Everything Tina wrote down is still there, but it’s not a white square any longer. “You did a brave thing. Brave types get stickers. Cool ones.”

Peter takes the rocket ship from Crowley and plasters it to his shirt himself. “Thanks!”

“You’ve gotta do a second brave thing, though.” Crowley lets out a very convincing sigh. “You’ve gotta get in this transport we’re sitting on and let it take you out of London.”

“But…my grandparents,” Peter whispers. The lip-trembling is back. Oh, God, they’re all doomed.

“Are probably already outside London, worried about you. It happens, short types like you getting lost in the crowd. It’s not on purpose or anything.” Crowley jerks a thumb over his shoulder. “Besides, you know how many people get to say they’ve ridden in one of these?”

“Soldiers?” Peter ventures.

“Aside from them.”

Peter gives the transport a curious look. “Not many, I guess.”

“Not many at all.” Crowley slides off the bonnet and holds his arms out. “C’mon. I bet they’ll let you have a window seat.”

The boy thinks about it before shuffling over the top of the bonnet to land in Crowley’s arms. “You promise?”

“Yep. Alverez!” Crowley yells. “You just became a chair!”

Alverez sighs in resignation and slings his rifle over his shoulder. “Again? Mate, this is the third time you’ve had me escort a kid out of here.”

“Don’t care, you’re doing it again anyway,” Crowley says, which makes Peter giggle. “Don’t worry about him, Peter. He’s completely soft. Loves kids. And dogs. Would _not_ shut up about dogs at four o’clock this morning.”

“What kind of dogs?” Peter asks as Alverez takes the kid from Crowley. “Are they stupid little barking dogs, or are they wicked awesome dogs?”

Alverez has Chihuahuas. Tina knows, because she’s seen the photos. “I,” Alverez announces, “have _stealth_ dogs.”

“Cool,” Peter breathes.

“He owns a pack of rats,” Crowley says after Peter and Alverez are loaded into the transport.

“Don’t say that. You’ll give rats a bad name,” Tina counters, trying to feel some sense of relief in all of this. “Good job finding the kid under that bush, by the way.”

“That’s the sort of thing I’m worried about.” Crowley waves at Peter as the kid gleefully sticks his arm out of the open window to say goodbye. “How many kids—how many _people_—have we missed because they went and hid on us?”

“Aren’t Celestials psychic? Can’t you just teleport them all?” Tina asks dryly.

Crowley gives her an offended glare. At least his eyes still look human. Sort of. “That’s two different abilities, Phillips! I swear to Someone, they don’t teach your lot anything anymore. Besides, it doesn’t really work that way. You can’t teleport someone if you don’t know where they are, and we can’t just…” He flaps his hands in the air in frustration. “None of us would be able to tell the difference between the volunteers and the military types and Torchwood and UNIT and any leftover hiding humans. The city would have to be empty for us to be able to pinpoint stragglers. Even then, some humans are _really_ good at hiding. Psychically, I mean. It’s good to keep people out of your head, but bloody inconvenient if you’re trying to find them. Needle in a fucking haystack.”

At 09:13, Sir Hughes’s voice is broadcasting through Tina’s ear-piece. Crowley, McNair, Alexander, and Sallow all perk up; Sir Hughes hasn’t been very talkative since HQ relocated out of Heathrow and into Slough.

“It is my pleasure to announce to you that the number of Londoners reported to dwell within the city has been surpassed by the number of civilians we’ve evacuated,” Sir Hughes announces. “It is of much greater pleasure to tell you that every borough has been searched, all hospitals, orphanages, and care homes are emptied, and the last of London’s evacuees are on transports or finishing the hike to our directed evacuation points over the M25. Congratulations, all of you. We’ve done it.”

McNair and Sallow cheer. Alexander slumps over and rests his hands on his knees, breathing heavily even as he smiles in relief. Tina feels the tension of a very long day and longer night drain from her shoulders. “Thank God.”

Crowley covers the mic input on his ear-piece. “I’m not celebrating until everyone is out of here. There are still people on the ground. That’s not safe.”

“But the numbers, sir!” Alexander protests. “Even if they’re not out, at least we know where everyone is.”

“I will shoot the next person who calls me sir, and believe me, you wouldn’t like prying an arrow out of your knee.”

“That meme is so dated,” McNair says.

“So’s your face, but you don’t hear me complaining about it,” Crowley retorts. Tina snorts and nearly bursts into semi-hysterical laughter.

“Calm before the storm?” That’s the one that Crowley identified as the youngest version of the Doctor present. She barely knows anything about him aside from alien, Time Lord, ship capable of amazing feats of dimensional mechanics, but it’s become obvious that he’s bloody clever. So is the older one running about, who looks so much like Crowley that Tina knows they’ve got to be family. Not an alien, her entire backside.

“I’m betting on it,” Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart says. “When it comes to aliens, nothing is ever this easy.”

“Seconded,” Harkness chimes in. “We’re still in London, and so are the Racnoss. Don’t let your guard down. I don’t want to lose anyone today, and I don’t care who you work for.”

“Amen,” Jones-Smith adds in a weary voice. “But I’m raiding a market for a bloody bottle of iced coffee.”

“Bleargh.” Crowley’s expression is of utter horror. On that, he and Tina are in perfect agreement. Coffee is _not_ meant to be cold.

“Hold on, you lot. Keep an eye out.” Tina realizes Crowley has switched channels when she can hear his voice from a few paces away, but no echo of it lands through her Bluetooth. “Listen. Start miracling the pedestrians out of here. Just…cheat.” He pauses, listening. “Yeah, I know it’ll attract more notice than when we pulled that trick in Central London, but something’s about to go wrong.”

Tina feels her shoulders tense back up. She draws her 9mm again, pats the spare clips in her trouser pockets, and keeps her breathing even. The carpark they’re in doesn’t seem like open space for spying incoming targets anymore. It just makes her feel exposed.

“Look, that’s the fun part about having a well-developed sense of self-preservation,” Crowley snaps. “I don’t care if you’re flying about London in the classiest lingerie to ever exist. Just help me get these people out of here!”

“You’re making us all paranoid, si—I mean Officer—I mean Crowley!” Sallow finally manages to stutter out.

“Good. Paranoid people live longer,” Crowley replies.

Tina takes another soothing breath. “Are you really going to fly over London in lingerie?”

“I would if someone dared me to, because I have no shame and excellent taste, but…yeah, unfortunately, you’re stuck with me for a bit longer.”

Tina jerks back in surprise when Crowley literally pulls a carved wooden bloody _longbow_ out of thin air. A quiver of arrows appears on his back a moment later, covering the bleached-out design on his jacket. “Crowley, what the fuck—”

Crowley turns, arrow nocked, and lets it fly. Something screams and falls.

Tina doesn’t realize she’s taken out a Racnoss until a very large red creature is on the ground. Next to it is a brown one with an arrow sticking out of its throat. “Oh shit. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit—”

“BREACH!” Alexander yells while Crowley, Tina, McNair, and Sallow all fire west. McNair angles himself so he can keep an eye on their south flank; Sallow does the same for their north flank. Alexander keeps his back to them, guarding the rear even as he’s reporting in. “WE HAVE RACNOSS ON THE GROUND IN GREATER LONDON. REPEAT, RACNOSS ON THE GROUND IN LONDON!”

“They’re coming down the B119!” Tina shouts. “Roman Road from Bethnal Green!”

“FUCK!” a different voice yells through the comm. “We thought it was a fucking rat!”

“Remember that some of them are capable of camouflaging themselves to match their surroundings!” That one is Michael, sounding like he’s in his element, a commanding presence in the chaos. “That doesn’t make it anyone’s fault. Just watch for the others that will be coming!”

“We’re holding the line just east of the fire station,” Crowley says, nocking another arrow and staring down a literal wall of bloody alien spiders. “And we’re going to hold it as long as we can.”

“Oh, fuck,” Tina whispers, taking aim and firing just as Crowley lets his arrow fly. Crowley’s right. They can’t run. There are transports behind them that aren’t out of London yet, and the Racnoss could overtake them and—

“FOCUS!” Crowley roars. Tina empties her pistol, drops the empty, too-warm clip, and slams its replacement home before taking aim again. “Better!”

“I’m suddenly regretting all of my life choices yesterday that led me to claiming I wouldn’t need a bloody AR-15!”

“They’re shit, anyway!” McNair says. “You’d want to get an M4 Carbine out of the US military’s hands, and they don’t like sharing!”

“God, how many of these things are there?” Sallow asks, his voice stuck in a high-pitched shriek.

“A lot! Keep bloody shooting them!” Crowley orders. He snatches another arrow from the quiver. Tina has an amusing moment to realize that the number of arrows he has isn’t decreasing. There are a _lot_ of Racnoss piling up with arrows protruding from their bodies, too.

_He doesn’t even have a gun, and he’s outpacing us._ Tina scowls and fires again when she has her next clear shot. “Is this a bad time to suggest a wager for who nails the most Racnoss? Loser buys everyone a round at a pub as soon as we get out of here!”

Crowley laughs, almost inaudible over the sound of gunfire. Tina hopes her ears forgive her. “I’ve done stupider things in my life than that! You’re on, Phillips!”

“BREACH!” That’s Magambo of UNIT. “WE HAVE A BREACH BY WAY OF FINCHLEY ROAD STATION, SOUTH HAMPSTEAD! We’re holding them back northbound on the A41!”

“BREACH, CLAPHAM NORTH STATION!” Tina doesn’t recognize the voice, but they sound panicked. “Racnoss are heading east and west on the A3! Suggest the A24 and the A203 intervene ASAP!”

“Fuck,” Crowley whispers, and then he’s on that other frequency again. “Someone tell me you’re getting these people off the ground!” He pulls another arrow, nocks it, and hesitates while listening. McNair shoots the Racnoss that comes too close. “Good! Someone announce it when it’s done!”

“Fall back, all teams. Keep the Racnoss occupied, but you are ordered to retreat _right now_!”

“Who the fuck was that?” Crowley asks Sallow.

“Someone with a higher paygrade than I’ve got, sir!” Sallow responds, pale as milk and visibly sweating. “I suggest we do as ordered!”

“Not until the eastbound transports behind us are across the M25. We’re holding this point until we can’t anymore.” Crowley kills another Racnoss, but Tina only knows he’s done it when it falls to the ground, no longer a match to its surroundings.

“Why are they coming after us like this?” McNair shouts. “Why aren’t they diverting, heading in different directions?”

Crowley grins, nothing more than a feral baring of teeth. Tina is glad his sunglasses are down over his eyes again, because she knows his bloody eyes have gone full viper again. “They can smell me! They’re hungry enough to be stupid about it, too!”

“So, what, they think you’re an extra shiny treat?” Alexander asks, mad laughter in his voice.

“Anyone old enough to have Huon particles in their blood is going to be seen as the ultimate buffet, yeah,” Crowley says. “Convenient right now, isn’t it?”

Tina has to agree with him on that, even if he’s a viper alien type. Instead of spread-out chaos, they have channeled chaos as the Racnoss charge down the roadway, directly at Crowley.

She isn’t going to let him get killed, either. It would be a black mark on her record, allowing a field commander to die while she’s on-site with them. That, and she rather likes the stupid bloke and his terrifying eyes.

“If you get yourself killed and eaten by Racnoss, I’m going to be _very_ cross,” Aziraphale says. Tina has gotten used to his voice, and all the others. She can identify every Celestial that way by now, even if she hasn’t met half of them.

“Darling, if I get myself eaten by Racnoss, you’d better give me a really nice funeral. I won’t haunt you if you don’t turn it into the biggest fucking party since the Vikings decided to stop being fun and turned civilized!”

* * * *

Crowley listens to the chatter through the comm’s main signal. He’s once again thanking his kid for his shoddy wording. If Lucy hadn’t granted Crowley that favor yesterday, he’d have fallen on his face ages ago.

They’ve been slowly retreating down Roman Road, inch by precious bloody inch. The Racnoss seem endless. He’s been counting and adding numbers based on the reported Racnoss incursions—up to seven now, fuck!

By the time they draw even with the Jacob House, Crowley’s got an estimate, and it’s terrifying. “There are tens of thousands of them. Have to be.”

“There _can’t_ be,” the Doctor on the ground with them replies. He sounds like he’s running. “There weren’t that many egg sacks in the New Zealand facility! Not even close!”

“Welcome to Impossible Day, then. We should be running out of Racnoss, and we’re not!” Crowley looks to Phillips. “How far to the fucking car?”

“It’s a Buffalo, sir!” Alexander corrects.

“I don’t care what it’s called!” Crowley shouts. “How far, and how close are those transports to crossing the bloody M25?”

“We left it in that big bloody carpark next to Morpeth Street!” Alexander says. “One more block and we’re there!”

McNair fires and drops another of the chameleon Hunters. “We need to get to the A12! It’s a clear path from there all the way to the EEC setup in Brentwood!”

They’ve just reached the car park when the all-clear for the eastbound transports comes in. Crowley takes a breath his corporation is screaming for, calculating speed, numbers, human strength, targets, all of it, in the space of a second. Time is his and he is Time, and he will not fall here.

“The pedestrians are off the ground,” Crowley hears another of the military types announce. “I’m not even going to ask about the teleportation; I’m just glad they’re all clear of London.”

“Five more minutes on southbound transports!”

“Ten more for westbound! We’re having to clear the path. Racnoss incursion in the way!”

“Bloody hell, how many of these things _are_ there?”

_A lot_, Crowley thinks. “All of you, back up,” he orders his minions. “Open those doors and be ready to get in the fucking car.” He keeps up his steady assault of arrows against a ceaseless onslaught of Racnoss, because he has to, and so do they. He needs to slow them down, just for a moment—

“For the last time, it’s a Buffalo!” Alexander shouts.

“Why does that sound as if you’re not going to be getting into the car?” Phillips asks, glaring at him. “You go with us. We don’t leave anyone behind!”

“I have more ways of getting out of this mess than you do. Besides, if you lot stop firing for more than a few seconds, they’re going to be on us, and the Racnoss can tear that armored car to shreds.” Crowley feels the burn in his arms of loosing arrow after arrow. He hasn’t done this in so long, and even Celestials get tired. “Tell me when you’re all in position, because I’m going to give you the distraction you need to get out of here.”

“Oh, fuck,” Sallow whimpers. Crowley glances back just long enough to see Alexander on the driver’s side, with Phillips waiting behind him; McNair is on the other side with Sallow.

Crowley hasn’t done this next bit in a while, either. _ISRAFIL! SWITCH OUT WITH ME!_

_ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? I HATE SHOOTING THAT BOW—_

Crowley suddenly has Israfil’s staff in his hands, the sigils glowing gold, the wood warm against his hands. He raises it up and slams it down onto the roadway, a scream buried behind clenched teeth as power washes up and through him to assault the earth.

The roadway rises up like a ribbon in flight as the shockwave passes through it. He’s seen it in earthquakes so many times, usually while trying not to die. The earth moves, the ground becomes liquid, and everything just goes to hell. Sometimes literally.

The Racnoss shriek as the ground betrays them, losing their footing, falling, swearing in their ancient tongue. Crowley hears the Buffalo (stupid name) tear out behind him, tires screeching. At least he didn’t have to order the idiots to leave. Phillips has a brain in her head; she would have told them to get the fuck out of here.

_Switch back?_ Crowley asks, shoulders drooping. He suddenly doesn’t think he could fly out of here. His arms are shaking even as the staff is suddenly the bow again, accompanied by the weight of the quiver against his back. It feels like it’d be smarter to steal a car, conserve energy.

Crowley reaches up and taps the ear-piece, switching the signal back to the private channel he shares with the others. Most of what he’s hearing is shouting, some snarling that definitely belongs to the Racnoss, weapons firing, and humans screaming. Great.

Of course, Crowley is the sodding idiot just standing in the middle of the fucking street, waiting for the Racnoss to come and bloody_ eat _him. “Fuck!” He turns in a full circle, searching, not finding. He is surrounded by shit cars that won’t be able to outpace the Racnoss. The locals are cheap bastards.

Crowley runs east, following instinct as he hits the next block, an entire section of row houses, flats, and businesses. There has to be something here with the speed to outrun a Racnoss, something that’ll accelerate quickly before they can reach out with razor pincers and tear him into Celestial shreds.

Crowley stumbles to a halt, staring at the red beauty parked on the street in front the next set of houses. He didn’t miracle that one up, and none of the others would even have a clue of where to start when it comes to that sort of thing.

“When is the last time I tried one of you?” Crowley asks himself, rushing towards the motorbike as the cacophony of the Racnoss gets closer. She’s a Ducati racing bike, brand new and beautiful, though cherry red is definitely not his preference. Panigale V4R is written in subtle lettering near the front.

Cold War. He and Aziraphale had switched assignments. Crowley went to Russia so Aziraphale could return to England long enough to check on his bookshop. Vietnam era bike. Been a while, then, but motorbikes haven’t really changed much.

Crowley snaps his fingers and unlocks the Ducati’s security clamps from both tires. “Okay. I can take a hint, Mum.”

The bike starts with a beautiful purr. The Bentley might finally have competition.

Maybe.

Then Crowley nearly loses all of his insides when he takes the Ducati out onto the road and lets go of the clutch. He leans down, makes sure his glasses stay in place, and outpaces the Racnoss at a speed that may well discorporate him if he doesn’t get this thing onto a wider roadway soon.

It’s no longer such a maybe on the competition front. His car is going to have a fit.

Crowley takes a turn and barely remembers to throw his weight in the proper direction to keep the bike from spilled him across the road. Definitely been too long, but he’s onto Grove Road now, and going north will take him straight to the A106. Then he just has to outrun the Racnoss for nearly thirty-nine kilometers after the 106 becomes the A12. No problem. Absolutely tickety-boo.

Dammit, Zira.

Think of the angel and he’ll start yelling at you. “Crowley, where in God’s Name _are_ you?”

“Uh, running for my life, but with less feet and more tires involved?” Crowley grimaces as he navigates a roundabout that has far too many bloody cars parked nearby. Straight shot again—nope, he just nearly discorporated himself with a house because of a fork in the road. He sticks to the left, finds the next straight stretch going east, and nearly passes out in relief when he crosses over a walkway and the bike’s tires hit the A106.

Oh, bad phrasing. He isn’t going to pass out, no way. He’s never, ever wanted to find out what it would be like to discorporate because he fucked about on a motorbike.

Crowley is the happiest being to ever exist in England when the A106 merges with the A12. The Racnoss are still behind him, lured by the scent of Huon particles and Celestial blood, but now he can open up the throttle on a bloody _racing bike_. It’s almost better than flying.

“I made it to the A12, angel. Calm the fuck down, huh?”

“Not until you get here!” Aziraphale retorts. “This ship has moved and is now hovering over the M25 at the A12 junction in case you need extra assistance.”

Crowley frowns. “That doesn’t sound ominous or anything.” Especially the hovering part.

“Not ominous. Just the feeling that you might need a bit of height, is all.”

Now his stupid corporation’s blood feels chilled. That’s the Bad Wolf talking, not Rose. “What for, Wolf Girl?”

“Two by two, Healer,” the Bad Wolf sings back.

“You’re joking, right?” Crowley shakes his head and concentrates on dodging around a few cars that have been abandoned along the roadway. Two cryptic and useless statements in one day. Mum’s prophecy was bad enough. “Update me, angel. What’s going on?”

“Almost all of the transports are out of the city. You’d know that if you were on the primary channel,” Aziraphale says.

Crowley rolls his eyes. “I’m so sorry that I didn’t have time to switch off the private frequency before I stole someone’s bike!”

“You’re wearing a helmet, right?”

“If I said yes, would it make you feel any better?”

Aziraphale sighs in exasperation. “Crowley!”

“Look, whoever owns this shiny bike was smart enough to take their helmet indoors. Not smart enough to garage the bike, though, because really, this thing is amazing and I want one. Why do we put so many bloody roundabouts on these roads?”

“They’re meant for impatient drivers like you, my dear,” Aziraphale replies. “All of the southbound traffic is now on the other side of the M25.”

“That’s good. Michael! Stop fucking about with the Racnoss and get out of London!” Crowley yells.

“When the northern human transports have crossed the motorway, I’ll do so, but not a moment before!”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Crowley blows out an aggravated breath. “Someone tell the northbound traffic to go faster!”

“I’m with Michael, little brother,” Raguel says. In the background, something screams and dies when it’s introduced to Raguel’s twin blades. “I’ll watch his back, never fear.”

Crowley can sense that Gabriel and Saraquel are still in the west. All of them are old enough to be Huon-laced Racnoss bait, which is diverting their attention away from the humans still in London.

Bait. Crowley frowns. He has an idea, maybe? Except he wants to get the hell out of London, and that’s the sort of idea that doesn’t allow for leaving. It might also allow for accidental death. He shelves the thought and takes another roundabout too fast, shifting reality so he misses the pothole.

He didn’t _mean_ to curse the A12. He really didn’t. It was a slip of the tongue, and demonic miracles meant that it stuck: _This road is always going to be a mess of potholes, I swear!_ and then he felt the magic kick in. Aziraphale tried to correct his blunder, but for some reason, it never sticks. Human belief, probably.

“Northbound is clear!” Donna yells a few minutes later. “Michael, you bleedin’ idiot, get back here!”

Crowley smiles as he takes the next roundabout. That’ll be Michael and Raguel both out of the city, just in time for Crowley to hit Ilford in Newbury Park. No more roundabouts. It’s a lovely stretch of uninterrupted roadway from here all the way to the M25.

A stretch of roadway full of potholes. Fuck his luck. He miracles them gone just to not have to deal with the buggering bastards.

“Westbound is clear!” Saraquel announces, panting for breath. “We’re on our way out, and bugger this for a lark. How did you handle all this activity during the Apocalypse, Crowley?”

“I wanted to continue to exist, that’s how!”

Crowley’s serpent eyes are the reason he sees it. Sudden movement is always refined and crystal clear, even in his peripheral vision.

A brown-haired, brown-eyed child with pale skin is standing at a window in a row house to his right, lace curtains moving in the breeze. Too-large blue t-shirt. Blue scrunchie in her hair. Maybe four or five years old, holding onto a stuffed duck that’s seen better days.

He nearly wrecks the bike on the fucking roadway as he brings it to a shrieking halt. The only thing that keeps him from crashing is two miracles and his foot on the ground, refusing to let his leg buckle when the weight of the bike tries to send him over.

After he has that disaster under control again, he turns around and slowly rolls the bike back to the house on the south side of the A12. Yep, there is definitely a kid there, still holding an old stuffed duck, still staring at Crowley with huge, frightened brown eyes.

He shoves his glasses back into his hair and waves, sort of hoping he’s hallucinating. No such luck, not if hallucinations have learned to smile and wave back.

“Crowley, why’d you stop moving?” Not-Jane asks.

Crowley feels his mouth twist up. “How’d you know that?”

“I’m kinda tracking you through your ear-piece, sorry. Oh, and the CCTV, that part was easy.”

“S’all right.” Crowley watches as a slightly older boy joins the girl at the window. He has darker skin from time in the sun, but the same brown hair and wide brown eyes. Now it’s three of them, doing nothing except staring at each other. “Oh, bless it.”

“Crowley? What’s wrong?” Michael asks.

“Not much.” _Bloody everything._ Crowley swallows hard and smiles at the kids while turning off the mic. Every word he says aloud is dropped straight into their heads so they can hear him. “There are bad aliens coming.”

“Really?” the girl asks. The boy frowns.

Crowley nods. “Yeah. Really bad sorts, but I’m gonna save you.”

He lifts his hand to snap his fingers, ready to teleport two kids to his side. He can fly the rest of the way, tired or not, and—

And how many more people are still in London? How many more kids?

Fuck, he can’t just leave! This isn’t like Noah’s fucking Ark, when Crowley couldn’t think of a plan and the stupid blasted floating zoo had been packed to the brim with wildlife, anyway. No one is telling him he can’t save these children, or anyone else who might have been overlooked.

The Racnoss aren’t a cleansing purge. They’re invaders who should have died out before the formation of the Earth.

This is his planet and his city. The Racnoss can’t fucking have it.

“Listen: I’m going to lead this nasty lot away from your house, but I’ll come back to get you. I promise,” Crowley tells the kids. “You need to hide from them until I get back.”

“Are they really bad?” the boy asks. Tim. His name is Tim Lewis, he’s seven, and he hasn’t seen his parents since yesterday afternoon. They said they’d come back in an hour from a shopping trip, but never turned up. He thinks the aliens got them, or maybe the military guys.

Crowley nods. “They’re really, _really_ bad.” He decides not to mention the part where the Racnoss eat people. Not yet, anyway.

“You promise you’ll come back?” the girl asks. Millie. Her name is Millicent Lewis, and she’s four-and-a-half years old. She hates the name Millicent, never call her that. Mum and Dad aren’t coming back and she knows it because they don’t like Tim and Millie. Tim doesn’t believe her, but Millie knows better.

Crowley thinks he’s going to spend a long time figuring out the worst possible way to _bless_ Mr. and Mrs. Lewis of Ilford after this disaster is over with. “I promise I’ll come back. Go on, now. Hide!”

He waits until the kids abandon the window and then gestures at their house. That little miracle won’t hide them from the Racnoss for long, but it should be enough. Then he looks behind him.

There is a virtual fucking Red Sea of Racnoss flooding through the roundabout he passed through nearly two kilometers ago. They’re _definitely_ not giving up. The Racnoss are going to follow him all the way to the M25.

He’s bloody terrified, but if they’re going to volunteer, might as well take advantage of it.

Crowley reactivates the mic. “Listen. Someone left two kids behind in Ilford. I’m not leaving them here, but I don’t have time to go in and get them, not with the Racnoss trying to climb up my backside. So. Yeah. Things are about to get interesting.”

“You’ll be careful. Well, as careful as I can ever convince you to be, yes?” Aziraphale asks.

“Yeah.” Crowley thinks about maths, fire, and timing. “See you soon, angel.”

“I look forward to it, dear.”

Crowley opens the throttle on the bike and leaves the stench of burnt rubber behind. The stupid idea it is, then.

* * * *

**10:36 Secret O: **Is the ginger on the motorbike doing what I think he’s doing?

The Doctor shoves her hand into her hair and types one-handed to keep the CCTVs cycling. Crowley is still heading east on the A12 on a bike that should be outpacing the Racnoss easily. Instead, they’re only about an eighth of a mile behind him, sometimes less. After finding those kids, he deliberately slowed down.

“He’s leading them,” the Doctor murmurs.

“Leading them to what?” Wilf asks, and then his eyes widen. “He’s leading that entire pack of ’em right to the M25, isn’t he?”

“Lucy, where are you right now?” Crowley asks through the comm, cutting off the Doctor’s reply.

“Some place called Waltham Cross. I’m standing on the north edge of the M25,” Lucy replies.

“Good.” The Doctor can hear Crowley take a deep breath. “Light it, Lucy. Clockwise burn.”

“WHAT?” that’s herself with Crowley’s face, using anger to sort-of-mask concern. They were always bad at that.

The Doctor quickly swaps the CCTV cameras over to Waltham Cross and watches violet fire erupt on the M25. It doesn’t happen all at once; it’s eating its way quickly along the motorway, the flames burning high into the sky.

“Oh, good Lord.” Michael sounds badly startled. “Crowley, you’d better survive this, or I will kill you.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” Crowley drawls in response. “Good to know that if the Racnoss and the fire don’t kill me, you will. I mean, which one should I choose?”

“None of the above is always an option, sunshine!” Donna snaps.

“I strongly suggest that if you’re anywhere near the M25, even if it’s an alien craft, you move out of the way,” Lucy says. “I don’t know what Black Fire would do to your ships, and I don’t think it’s the best idea to find out.”

**10:38 Doctor:** Yeah, I’m pretty sure he’s doing what you think he’s doing. Oh, bugger.

**10:38 Doctor: **Wait, I thought you said you were leaving the planet the moment the evacuation was done.

**10:39: Secret O: **Are you joking? Where else am I going to find this sort of entertainment?

**10:39 Secret O: **That was a close CCTV capture. Why does he look like a ginger-you from a few faces ago?

**10:40 Doctor: **Long story. Short story? Middling story. My last face was from a guy in ancient Pompeii, it’s not like it doesn’t happen.

**10:40 Secret O:** Excellent point. You’re obfuscating, though. I cannot wait to find out why.

“Crowley, what in Heaven’s name are you _doing?_” Gabriel asks.

“Something stupid. About like usual,” Crowley says.

The Doctor watches the fire, looks at the distance left the travel until it reaches the A12 junction, the pack of Racnoss following her dad, and thinks about the thermal energy that wall of Black Fire is probably generating. That energy travels in waves.

“Please get the timing right,” the Doctor whispers. “Please.”

* * * *

Aziraphale leans out of the TARDIS’s open doorway, watching the violet fire on the M25 approach as a high, unassailable wall. Then he turns his head, watching the red gleam of the approaching motorbike. Just behind it are the Racnoss, a terrifying number of them. Too many to fight alone, too many to—

“You’re not going to teleport those children to safety after you cross. The timing’s wrong,” Aziraphale realizes, his gut tightening in apprehension. “You’re literally going back for them.”

“Yeah.” Crowley guides the motorbike over to the empty westbound slip ramp for the motorway, placing him just a bit further south. “Sorry, angel.”

Aziraphale glances back at Rose. “Thank you for the height, dear.”

The Bad Wolf smiles, her eyes still casting a golden glow on the TARDIS’s control panel. “You’re welcome. Good luck. Be ready.”

“I will.” Aziraphale launches himself from the TARDIS, dropping into the air of Greater London as he spreads all four of his wings. He hears the TARDIS’s distinct whine and knows that Rose has moved the ship out of range; Aziraphale gains height just before the thermal press of Black Fire tries to push him away.

He looks down at the roadway. “Crowley, you’re insane.”

“Bit busy right now, insult me later!”

Aziraphale watches Crowley approach, and finally understands the true meaning of the expression of having “your heart in your throat.” Crowley doesn’t slow down. He doesn’t veer aside. He leads the Racnoss packs behind him directly to the fire.

At the last possible moment, Crowley launches himself upwards, wings spread, as the motorbike vanishes into the flames. Aziraphale can hear Crowley yelling, the sound incomprehensible over the roar of the flames.

The Racnoss were too focused on their prey. They can’t slow themselves in time. Dozens of them crash directly into Lucifer’s wall of Black Fire. Aziraphale bites his lip as hundreds of voices scream in pain before they die.

Then he realizes that Crowley is struggling to pull away from the fire. He isn’t at a distance where the thermal wall can push him away; he’s trapped in the air pocket just below.

Aziraphale still doesn’t know what the Bad Wolf meant by that two-by-two nonsense, but he knows what he has to do right now. He tucks in his wings and falls to Crowley’s height, spreads his wings again, and latches onto the back of Crowley’s jacket. “GOT YOU!”

Crowley looks up in shock. “_ANGEL?_ WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING HERE?”

“Did you really think I’d let you do this alone?” Aziraphale pulls them both away from the flames, his wings beating hard to fly them further and further away from that dangerous wall.

Crowley looks down, and Aziraphale follows his gaze. Crowley couldn’t fool all of the Racnoss, of course, but there is a rather large pile-up of confused Racnoss at the end of the A12, trapped in the city by the M25’s ring of Black Fire. “Okay, so. That worked.” Crowley sounds a bit dazed.

“That was idiotic!” Aziraphale shouts. “You could have been killed! Permanently killed, Crowley!”

“Nah. It was all about the timing.” Crowley lets out a loud, harsh breath. “You shouldn’t have—you should be over there, where it’s safe.”

“Crowley.” Aziraphale tries to let go of Crowley’s jacket, but his fingers are refusing to obey him. “I wouldn’t be able to bear it, knowing you were here alone. Don’t ask that of me, my dear.”

Crowley doesn’t say anything for a moment, doing nothing more than flapping his bronze-edged wings to help keep them aloft. “Okay. Yeah. I would have done the same thing. Don’t let go; we’re going back to Ilford.”

“Good luck,” Aziraphale hears Not-Jane say through the ear-piece. “We’re not going to be able to—Black Fire is blocking signals from the mobiles and the CCTV as it spreads. None of us will be able to help you once it has the city surrounded.”

“We’ll be fine, Jane,” Crowley responds. “I—fuck. I promise. None of us are going to die. Lucy, how long will that fire burn?”

“Until it extinguishes itself. I don’t know how long that will take. I can’t stop it until it’s done.”

“Thanks,” Crowley says. “Take care, you lot.”

Aziraphale feels the miracle begin and clutches Crowley’s jacket tighter in his hands. Then they’re no longer anywhere near the burning wall of the M25, but hanging in the air over the A12 and an evacuated stretch of row housing. Aziraphale glances around, but there isn’t a Racnoss in sight. Every Racnoss in this area followed Crowley all the way to the motorway.

When they land, it’s to discover utter silence. Aziraphale has never experienced a London this hushed, not even when it was a Roman settlement called Londinium. “This is…quite spooky.” It gets worse when the ear-piece whines, squawks, and then joins London in being unnaturally quiet.

“Not my sort of spooky, either.” Crowley is untangling his windblown hair from his glasses while he tucks his wings away.

No, Aziraphale imagines it is very much not Crowley’s type of spooky. They’d both walked through too many silent villages during the height of the Black Death, every human life lost to the plague.

“S’like that one film, _28 Days Later_. Did I ever show you that one?” Crowley asks, taking off his ear-piece. He gives it a curious look and then pockets it.

Aziraphale slowly shakes his head as he takes his own ear-piece off, dropping it into his coat pocket. He doesn’t even know if his mobile will function inside the Black Fire barrier, though he imagines he and Crowley would only be ringing each other. “Was it any good, that film?”

“Bloody terrifying. Well done and all, but bloody terrifying. They definitely got the silence right. It was just like this. Not sure I’ll be able to watch it again.” Crowley slides his glasses back on after miracling them clean. “You all right, angel?”

“I should be asking _you_ that question.” Aziraphale realizes he’s trembling. “Crowley. You were the last one who was meant to leave London. I was watching you, and then the fire, and that blasted motorbike—!”

Crowley wraps Aziraphale in his all-limbs embrace, his face pressed against Aziraphale’s neck. “Breathe, angel. I’m okay. I’m right here, and we’re both okay. I know exactly what we’re gonna do, all right?”

Aziraphale swallows, takes a few calming breaths, and attempts to smile. “You have a plan? You, dear?”

“Oi! I think I’ve done well enough today. This week.” Crowley hums under his breath. “Past six months? Not sure how I’d count it, but still. I really do have a plan.”

Aziraphale realizes there is an odd pressure against his belly, something hard jabbing into his skin because of Crowley’s relentless clinging. It’s definitely not the ear-piece; the shape is wrong. “All right. I believe you, love.”

Crowley lifts his head and kisses Aziraphale, an almost chaste press of lips. “Together?”

Aziraphale nods and regretfully lets go, much as he’d like to stand here for a solid year while wrapped in Crowley’s arms. “Always.” Then he starts digging around in his pockets, trying to find what was prodding at his midsection. His mobile is in his other pocket, and he doesn’t recall picking up anything else—

In his inner coat pocket, Aziraphale’s fingers close around a soft box. “What is this?”

“Uh—” Crowley is abruptly quite flustered. “You’re just now finding that?”

“I’ve been _busy!_” Aziraphale retorts, and then all thought flies directly out of his head as he pulls his discovery out to take a look.

He’s holding a velvet box. A velvet blue jewelry box.

“Crowley. What is this?”

Crowley glances off to the side. “It’s just…a thing.”

“A thing,” Aziraphale repeats. His curiosity bubbles over, so he pries open the box.

Inside is a gold ring. The band is not too thin, not too thick. Not too narrow, not too wide. Directly in the center is a square-shaped, faceted blue gemstone that is remarkably similar to the color of Aziraphale’s eyes.

Aziraphale stares at the ring in shock. “Is this—?”

Crowley swallows and keeps his head turned away. “Yeah.”

“But when did you…” Aziraphale gasps as he realizes what he’d missed. Saturday morning, when Crowley had come to him and pulled Aziraphale aside to speak to him alone.

_I wanted to ask you something. Suppose maybe it’s been on my mind a bit, but there never seemed to be a good time to ask. Or a good reason, I guess._

“You slipped it into my coat pocket early yesterday morning. Didn’t you?”

Crowley nods. “Didn’t expect it’d take this long for you to notice it. I thought maybe you had found it and just…”

“I would _never_,” Aziraphale interrupts him. None of that; absolutely not. “But this—this _is_ what I think it is, yes?”

Crowley hunches his shoulders and shoves his hands into his denim pockets. “Yep.”

“Oh. Oh, my dear Crowley.” Aziraphale bites his lip, hating the way Crowley is already bracing himself for rejection. It makes Aziraphale’s heart hurt, because that is _his_ fault, and he’s…bugger it, Aziraphale is _done_ with dithering. He’s been in love for such a long time, even if he didn’t realize it until 1941. They’ve known each other for over six thousand years. If that isn’t enough time for a courtship, then no one’s courtship should ever succeed at all.

Aziraphale gathers up the remnants of his courage. He can face a hundred Racnoss without flinching, but a hundred Racnoss are not as important as the tempting serpent who owns his heart. “It’s—it’s a bit traditional, I believe, for the one who proposes to…to put the ring on the other’s finger.”

Crowley finally turns to face him, slowly pulling his glasses off his face. His eyes are entirely gold. “You want me to?” he asks, his voice emerging as a pained croak. “You—you’re—”

Aziraphale holds up the box, his vision going a bit blurry. “Crowley. Finish what you’ve started, dear.”

Crowley pulls the gold band from the box with shaking fingers and then lifts Aziraphale’s left hand. “I—will you—I know I’m ridiculous, a bloody stupid idiot, a demon you’ve had to put up with for six thousand years and I made your life difficult, but…will—will you—”

Aziraphale watches golden tears roll down Crowley’s cheeks and realizes that his beloved is stuck. He desperately wants to say the words. He wants it so much that Aziraphale can feel Crowley’s longing hang heavily in the air.

“Yes,” Aziraphale whispers, and then he’s crying, too, both of them turning into sodden messes as Crowley slides the gold ring onto Aziraphale’s finger. It fits perfectly, and feels as if it’s always belonged there. “Yes, Crowley. I’ll marry you. I’d have married you last year if you had asked me.”

“Didn’t know if it was something you wanted,” Crowley murmurs, staring down at Aziraphale’s left hand. He keeps running his thumb along Aziraphale’s skin, bumping against the ring, as if trying to assure himself that it’s real.

“I think I’ve lived on this planet so long that it would be odd _not_ to want it, my dearest.” Aziraphale sniffs and snaps the empty box shut, putting it back into his coat pocket. Then he reaches out with his right hand to lift Crowley’s head, gentle fingers under his beloved’s sharp chin.

Crowley slowly looks up to meet Aziraphale’s gaze. There is hope burning in his eyes, a great deal of amazed wonder, and enough love to steal Aziraphale’s unnecessary breath. “You’re sure?”

Aziraphale smiles and blinks away fresh tears. This is the first time he’s felt true happiness since watching his beloved bookshop collapse into Typhaon’s accursed pit. “How many languages do you want me to say _yes_ in, you utter fool? I know a number of them; we’d be standing here for a very long while!”

Crowley grins and then kisses him again, both hands clasped around Aziraphale’s face, long fingers brushing the back of Aziraphale’s neck. “Darling, that would be a very bad idea right now,” Crowley whispers against Aziraphale’s lips. “Let’s go get those kids, all right?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <s>I don't know when the next update is going to happen. I recently got the writer's equivalent of being slapped in the face with a brick, and when it's something you've been putting so much work into, combining two impossible universes that are both heavily fantasy/sci-fi based, your desire to keep putting that effort in dries up pretty fast. Usually I can distract myself and sleep and the next day it's like a beautiful reset Meh, Whatever, and today it just...didn't happen.</s>
> 
> <s>Let's be real, though: there weren't a ton of people following this disaster in the first place. I was fine with that, because I was enjoying and writing it for me as much as anyone else who wanted to hop aboard, but...writer's slap, man. It takes away the joy and just leaves you with this gaping fucking hole. I've got other pots bubbling away I can focus on instead that are (usually) less slap-happy.</s>
> 
> <s>Maybe I'm just tired. Stay subscribed in the meantime; next week might change things entirely. </s>
> 
> <s>At least if I never come back to this dumpster fire, I've left it in a nice place. </s>
> 
> Sooooo it turned out to be a combination of three horrific things: 1) There was a weather front coming in that I couldn't feel until I suddenly barely capable of standing up or even crawling into bed because everything hurt so much (Thanks body, for reminding me about the disability thing, not like I wasn't already aware); 2) PTSD neurochem crash because I hate you too, PTSD, and 3) Yeah, uhm...those two things will make you really stupid-levels of tired.
> 
> I'm gonna plug in the next section that *was* done as a temporary intermission (the next part was fighting me anyway) and we'll give this a week or so to settle and see how the next parts pile together. 
> 
> Thank you guys, so, so very much for speaking up and telling me how much this story meant to you all. It was amazing, and I felt buried in love, and also it made the PTSD bullshit shut the fuck up, which is always good. 
> 
> Love you, all of you. No matter what, SOMETHING I'm doing aside from this intermission chapter will update soon. <3


	33. Intermission - Tadfield

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The kids (and the adults) are a twitchy bunch. Adam also needs to stop thinking so hard about things because then they happen, but at least Warlock is used to that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cheer-read by @mrsstanley! (I can't remember at the moment if @norcumii saw it for cheer-reading because pain makes things go pomegranate-shaped.) This was written before the brick-to-the-face moment, which is why I have it to post.
> 
> See notes at the end for an update on things mentioned last chapter <3

Warlock had initially thought it was sort of funny when the clock struck noon on Saturday, nothing changed, and then Adam fell over backwards onto the cottage’s faded rug in relief. “Dude, it’s just Saturday,” Warlock said.

Brian made a face at hearing _dude_ but didn’t complain; Wensleydale looked as if he was storing the word away for further thought. “No, that was…” Adam blew out a long breath. “That was my fourth Friday an’ Saturday in a row. It kept resetting for me at noon, an’ this time it didn’t, so they really did fix that part!”

“You were still worried about it?” Newton—Newt, he seemed to prefer, and Warlock thought that was awesome—came into the living room, carrying a tea tray. “You lot, out of the way,” he says, but it wasn’t an order. It was way too polite. “I thought you said last night, well, early this morning after Crowley dropped you off, that the person who created this time loop of yours was already dealt with.”

“Yeah, but sometimes that doesn’t necessarily mean nothin,’ ya know?” Adam had said. All of them, Warlock included, had nodded, because that was such truth.

Warlock’s parents had finally called his cell phone around two that afternoon. They claimed to only have just found out that he wasn’t with the household staff, but Warlock didn’t buy it. They just hadn’t noticed.

“Where are you?” Mom asked, already sounding as if her attention is drifting off somewhere else.

Warlock rolled his eyes. “Evacuated already, I told you. I’m in Oxfordshire, safe as houses.”

“I hate that phrase,” Mom muttered. Warlock ignored her. “They’ll bring you back when this emergency is over with, right?”

_I hope not_, Warlock thought, scowling, but pitched his voice all bright and cheerful and bullshitty. “Sure, Mom. Tell Dad I said hello. Hope you two make the best faces for the press!”

“What was that, honey?”

“Nothing, Mom. Gotta go, talk later!” Warlock ended the call before Mom could figure out how sarcastic he’d been.

Warlock knew better than to ask her questions. He had a much better source for getting real answers.

**2:05 Warlock eD:** Hi, Nanny! So how bad is London?

**2:06 Nanny C: **i never want to have to help idiots evacuate nine million people ever again

**2:06 Warlock eD: **Sounds like balls. Bollocks? Whatever. It sounds like it sucks.

**2:09 Nanny C: **it really does. hey, congratulate me. i’m trying to figure out how to be the fastest reinstated agent to be sacked by MI5

**2:09 Warlock eD: **You’re MI5 now? That is so cool! (▀̿̿Ĺ̯̿▀̿ ̿)

**2:10 Warlock eD: **Wait, why do you want to be sacked from awesomeness? Who hired you for MI5 in the first place?

**2:11 Nanny C: **it was WWII, everyone was desperate. if you knew anything about data analysis, you’d wanna be sacked too

Warlock paused. Data analysis sounded like maths. Bugger that.

Another big sign that things in London were bad: Nanny wasn’t demonstrating proper grammar like Brother Francis made them do for texting. Francis always wanted Nanny to be a Good Influence and all that, at least when it comes to How To Word.

**2:12 Warlock eD:** Okay, yeah, point, but I want a tour of MI5 before you sack yourself.

**2:15 Nanny C: **Warlock darling, sack yourself sounds like i’m trying to punch myself in the bollocks

**2:15 Warlock eD:** ʘ_ʘ

**2:15 Warlock eD:** Nanny, we’ve talked about you saying things like that.

**2:17 Nanny C: **sorry hellspawn, exhausted. i’ll text you later

**2:17 Nanny C: **if i ever get a chance to breathe

Warlock didn’t get a text again until after six-thirty, right in the middle of Anathema—such a cool name—Newt, Adam, Pepper, Brian, Wensleydale, and Warlock having dinner. Supper. Whatever it’s called. Food after dark. Warlock gave up on trying to remember what parts of England called the meal by what name when he was nine years old.

He liked things this way better than eating at home, which was usually Warlock in the kitchen with the servants, sitting by himself, or as a “family” which meant eating while listening to his parents pick at each other. Nanny and Francis could bicker without sounding like they hated each other, but his parents…Warlock often wondered if his parents would ever do the smart thing and get a divorce. He didn’t let himself wonder what would happen to him if they did.

Nanny’s text is simple:_ go outside and look up_.

“Hey, guys. Na—Crowley texted. He said we should go outside and look up.”

The Them, Newt, and Anathema all glanced at each other and shrugged. “Sure, what could it hurt?” Newt asked.

“It could hurt _all the things_,” Pepper retorted. “Honestly.”

Warlock couldn’t see the guards that Crowley said were watching the place, but Adam insisted they were still there. Given that one of them was supposed to be a proper demon with Teeth, Warlock was fine with never seeing them ever.

“Whoa.” Brian pointed up at a bright object in the sky. It was smaller than the moon, but not by much. It was also…blue?

“What is that?” Warlock asked.

“That’s a moon,” Newt said at once, and then frowned. “It can’t be a moon.”

Anathema ducked back into the cottage and came out with a brass telescope thing. She peered up through it to look at the maybe-moon and then lowered it. “Crowley, what did you do?”

Warlock and Adam glanced at each other, both of them trying not to crack up laughing. Anathema was probably blaming the right person, but they were the ones who really understood _why_ she’d make that kind of jump.

Pepper gave the maybe-moon a thoughtful look. “Why’s it blue?”

“Because that’s water,” Anathema said. “Huh.”

“So, on a scale of one to Atlantis…”

Warlock snorted. “That doesn’t top Atlantis, Adam.” His parents refused to believe Atlantis was real, even after the news and the interviews and the overhead satellite photos. Typical.

He climbed into a sleeping bag on the floor next to the Them late Saturday night, though not nearly as late as it had been for going to bed on a Friday. He waited until the others were asleep before slipping his phone out, fingers flying over the screen.

**23:45 Warlock eD:** How’s it going?

**23:49 Nanny C: **i hate everything

**23:49 Warlock eD: **No you don’t, because you love me and Francis. I mean Aziraphale. Francis is way easier to type, tho. BTW is that a new moon?

**23:51 Nanny C:** it might be

**23:51 Nanny C: **in about a decade

**23:51 Nanny C: **might also be a kraken, who knows

**23:52 Warlock eD: **Cool. That’s even better than MI5.

**23:52 Nanny C: **you say that because you’re smart. gotta go. sleep well, hellspawn.

**23:53 Warlock eD: **You too, Nanny

**23:54: Nanny C: **lol no sleep for us. bloody pipe dream. wait, i forgot to ask. how’s the friend thing going?

**23:54 Warlock eD: **Nobody’s dead yet and no wars declared outside of running around in the woods. I don’t want to go back to my parents. These kids think it’s weird that I’ve never been allowed to go running around in the woods before. They’re right, too. It’s weird and I hate it.

**23:55 Warlock eD: **The fact that it’s weird, I mean, not that I’m getting to do it. Newt and Anathema are cool, witchcraft is awesome and she thinks I’m good at it, the Them are odd in a good way because they seem to like me, Adam’s half of what you and Francis are (also cool) and is really happy that I’m not weirded out when he occasionally does you-like things. There is nothing to do in this village unless you go tree-climbing and I love it. I want to stay. ( ´-﹏-`；)

**23:58 Nanny C: **I know. I don’t know how to fix it, sweetheart, but I know.

**23:58 Nanny C:** Love you.

Warlock sniffed, wiped his eyes, and typed _Love you, too_, before putting his phone aside. Then he decisively rolled over and tried to sleep.

By eleven in the morning on Sunday, Warlock didn’t think Adam’s reaction about the time loop thing on Saturday was funny anymore.

Anathema and Newt don’t have a television because Anathema doesn’t want one. Newt wants a television but doesn’t want to break it, so after breakfast, Warlock and the Them traipse over to Pepper’s house to watch the news about London in Pepper’s living room.

Pepper’s mom is weirder than Anathema. Pepper’s little sister is rabid. Warlock is glad to escape both of them unscathed. He’s eleven; he can’t handle a conversation about the patriarchy and social mechanisms among income levels while a kid tries to eat his kneecap through his jeans. Warlock silently thanks God when Pepper’s mom and the terrifying sister stay in the kitchen to watch the news on the smaller television.

“Whoa,” Adam whispers. They muted the newscaster so they didn’t have to listen to him babbling, but the camera is an overhead shot from a helicopter over London. Traffic is only moving along certain roads, most of it bunched up right at the M25.

Central London is still surrounded by a ring of orange fire. It’s neat except for the part where Warlock lives right near where the fire is burning.

All of them sit down and settle in to watch without needing even talk about it. The crawling bar across the bottom of the television screen is calling this the Final Stage of London’s evacuation, though nobody seems to know _why_ London’s being evacuated in the first place. Warlock sees speculation about environmental disaster, pending earthquake, pending sinkhole as evidenced by the damage in Soho—

“Shite,” Brian gasps, and then blushes. “Sorry, but—shite!”

“That’s where…that’s where they were. In Soho.” Adam swallows. “They’re saying that happened on Saturday morning. You were talkin’ to Crowley last night, right?”

Warlock nods. Soho looks sort of like the Middle Eastern warzones that are sometimes shown on the news. “Yeah. He would’ve said something if anyone was hurt.”

“Are they _flying_ around London?” Brian leans in so close to the television he almost presses his nose against the screen. “Like, people with wings and flying?”

Adam sighs. “Brian. I’ve got wings. So do my godparents. You knew that 'cause I told you!”

“Yeah, but you don’t fly around Tadfield!” Brian says. “An’ you’re not doing it with swords and stuff, either!”

Warlock winces when the news camera zooms in close to something just as it gets made very dead. “What is that red thing on too many legs that just got swatted by one of the winged types?” That’s definitely not Nanny; their hair is the wrong color.

Adam tilts his head and frowns. “I think that’s why Crowley made us leave London.”

“Those things are bloody _terrifying_.” Brian leans away from the television. No one disagrees with him. Warlock wouldn’t want to be stuck facing down a centaur that looks like it forgot how to horse and decided to spider, instead.

“Wait, why’s the helicopter leaving?” Pepper asks, scowling at the screen. “Go back, you blighter! We can’t find out what’s going on if you leave!”

“He can’t. The crawl says that everyone is being ordered out of London’s air space,” Wensleydale points out. “Anyway, that doesn’t sound like a sinkhole to me. You don’t need to clear the airspace for sinkholes.”

Warlock yanks out his phone and sends a text to Crowley. He waits a full five minutes and doesn’t get an answer. He sends another, just in case, and then texts Francis.

**9:25 Warlock eD:** Az, wtf is going on in London?

**9:30 B Francis: **Language, young man. Also, don’t call me that, please. Everything is going to be fine, but I’m a bit busy right now.

**9:30 Warlock eD:** Okay.

When in doubt, text the sane person. Warlock hopes he doesn’t get the same dismissal from Israfil.

**9:35 Godfather Sane:** sorry, busy not dying, will text you after the m25 is on fire, bye!

Warlock shows Israfil’s text to the Them. “I think I know why they’re clearing London’s airspace."

“Quarantine!” Wensleydale lights up. “It’s going to be a quarantine zone!”

Pepper scowls. “If it keeps those red spider things away from Tadfield, I’m just fine with that.”

Brian points at the screen. “Look, the news crawl says they got everyone out of London, so it’s fine!”

“No it’s not.” Adam is biting his lip. “Aziraphale is at the border, but Israfil an’ Crowley are still in London. I think some of the others are, too.”

The news crawl updates to say that there are unknown hostiles in London, as announced by the British military. “Bit late on that,” Pepper says sarcastically. “By like twenty minutes.”

“Yes, but now it’s _official_,” Warlock replies. He and Pepper have a mutual love of sarcasm. It was another thing to bond over aside from teleporting and molecules and stuff.

“They’re saying the last of London’s volunteers are leaving now,” Wensleydale reads from the crawl. Warlock can read it just fine for himself, but there’s something kind of soothing about a kid as chill as Wensleydale reading it aloud.

“If only we could see what was going on!” Adam groans in frustration.

The television abruptly switches to a closer overhead view of London, split into four screens. Warlock doesn’t recognize any of the people except Nanny and Israfil. The hair is a dead giveaway.

Warlock swallows. _Don’t think about dead_.

“Oops.” Adam turns the same shade of red as Pepper’s raincoat. “That was an accident.”

“Yeah, but who cares? Now we can see what’s going on!” Pepper reaches over and high-fives Adam, which just makes Adam’s blush get worse.

They all stare at the screen for a few minutes, riveted. Then the black-skinned person with wings suddenly disintegrates, and it’s not fun anymore.

“She’s okay,” Adam reassures them, though he looks upset. “That was just a discorporation thing for them. She’s not _dead_-dead. But we won’t see her again for a bit. Needs a new body first.”

“Can you do the discorporation bit?” Wensleydale asks, curious again now that they all know the winged person isn’t permanent-dead.

Adam shrugs. “Dunno. I don’t really wanna step out in front of a car an’ find out. Besides, even if it did work, I’d be gone for days an’ days. Mum an’ Dad would throw a _fit_.”

“Did you know Crowley could ride a bike?” Pepper asks when Adam does something weird to shift their view of the motorbike on the highway and they all get a glimpse of Nanny’s hair.

Warlock shakes his head. “No. He, uh, doesn’t look all that happy about it, either.”

At 10:39, the view switches back to normal news. Adam doesn’t say anything; he just points.

The news helicopter is still in the sky. The camera is pointing at a wall of purple that is forming and spreading at the north end of the M25.

“That,” Adam says in a faint voice. “That’s Black Fire. It’s not like normal fire or even hellfire. It’s really bad.”

Warlock puts his hands over his eyes when he realizes Nanny is racing the bike directly at the M25 and its approaching purple Black Fire. “Please tell me when he’s okay.” Because not-okay is not an option. Warlock can’t handle losing Nanny, even if he still has Francis and Israfil. Nanny came first. Nanny _loved him_ first.

Adam reaches over and tugs on Warlock’s denim coat sleeve. “He’s not dead, but we couldn’t see what happened. But Aziraphale and Crowley are both in London.”

Warlock nods and immediately dials Crowley’s number. The only thing he gets in response is an automated Out of Service message.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooooo it turned out to be a combination of three horrific things: 1) There was a weather front coming in that I couldn't feel until I suddenly barely capable of standing up or even crawling into bed because everything hurt so much (Thanks body, for reminding me about the disability thing, not like I wasn't already aware); 2) PTSD neurochem crash because I hate you too, PTSD, and 3) Yeah, uhm...those two things will make you really stupid-levels of tired.
> 
> After this, we'll give this a week or so to settle and see how the next parts pile together.
> 
> Thank you guys, so, so very much for speaking up and telling me how much this story meant to you all. It was amazing, and I felt buried in love, and also it made the PTSD bullshit shut the fuck up, which is always good.
> 
> Love you, all of you. No matter what, SOMETHING I'm doing aside from this intermission chapter will update soon. <3


	34. Reactivity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “A timer? Why are we on a timer? Timers are bad.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nope, didn't think I'd get a chapter out. Especially this one.
> 
> Then science happened and was happened to, so... stuff?
> 
> Beta'd by @mrsstanley, cheerread by @norcumii, and scienced at by myself, @mrsstanley, and @drougnor, with lots of yelling about hand-waving and plotnium. (I loathe plotnium.)

12:00 Sunday May 24th 2020

Iver Parish, Slough

“Yes, Mum, I promise we’re fine.” Tish just barely managed to keep from rolling her eyes. “Yeah, there were aliens in London. Well, there _are_ aliens in London, but we’ve got the people out, and we’re out, so you can relax, yeah?”

Tish reaches out and elbows Martha. Her sister looks up from the vid conference on her mobile, holds her fingers over her lips, and then leans over to look into Tish’s mobile camera. “Hi, Mum! What’s that I’m hearing about you not believing Tish that we’re fine?”

“Because it’s _you_, sweetheart,” Francine replies dryly. Tish is willing to admit that their mother has a point. “But I’m glad to see your face. Is Mickey about?”

Martha lifts her head and searches the crowded clubhouse room until she finds him. “Speaking to Jack and the CDS.” Tish also doesn’t blame Martha for not mentioning that the Doctor is standing there with them. Their mum still has a few anger issues and sometimes slips to blaming him, when it was most definitely someone _else’s_ bloody fault that the Year That Wasn’t happened in the first place. “And before you even ask, none of us are hurt, and your other grandkids are in Cardiff, driving their Uncle Ianto to madness.”

Tish glances at Martha’s mobile just in time to catch Ianto rolling his eyes. That one can complain all he likes, but he adores Hope and Rita. Strax is the one who’s probably driving everyone mental.

“How’s Dad?” Tish asks before mum can go off again on safety and how Tish, Martha, and Mickey are Still Too Close to London and should join them at Martha and Mickey’s cabin in the Peak District. “And Leo, Tracy, Keisha, and the rest, for that matter.”

“Keisha and Tracy are outside.” Francine’s eyes narrow in disapproval. “I think Keisha was going a bit stir-crazy, her being the active gymnast type she is, but I don’t think Tracy and Leo are handling the close quarters very well. I’d really like it if it were the opposite, you know, but…”

“Yeah,” Trish says. She’d liked Tracy well enough, but she couldn’t really handle the family dynamics. Their brother barely handled the family dynamics, but at least he’d believed them about the Master and the Year That Wasn’t. Tracy just thought they were all nutters.

Well, now there are aliens in London. Tracy will just have to consider herself a nutter, too.

Besides, Tish stopped liking Tracy all that much after she tried to use the Year That Wasn’t story against Leo in order to get full custody of Keisha. Martha hadn’t much appreciated needing to go into court, having a judge sign off on the Official Secrets Act, and then tell the poor bloke that she was part of UNIT. _That_ UNIT.

The resulting tiff between Tracy and Leo had taken a full decade to wind down into something approaching civil. Keisha decided at age four that everyone in the family was ridiculous, stuffed her nose into a book when she wasn’t swinging on a bar, and proceeded to ignore the lot of them at every opportunity.

“What about Dad?” Martha asks.

Their mum glances over her shoulder. “Clive’s having a good day,” she says in a much quieter voice. “Not a single slip. I think it’s helping that he’s watching the news for London, and that we’re in a strange place. Funny, though, that it’s the strange place that’s helping instead of the familiar.”

“No, that really sounds like just the sort of thing Dad would be stubborn about,” Martha says, smiling. Tish swallows down a lump in her throat. Bloody Alzheimer’s. She didn’t want to lose her dad, but something fast would be a lot more merciful than this. Martha is keeping her up to date on news about a potential cure, but Tish isn’t holding out much hope that it’ll be ready in time. Their dad’s bad days are already…they’re really bad.

Tish ends that call and then leans over so she can share the screen with Martha. Hope and Rita have replaced Ianto again. Rita has a bright green streak of paint in her hair. Hope’s paint is a dot on the end of her nose, but otherwise, they’re both clean, happy, and most likely stuffed to the gills thanks to Strax’s ideas on how often _small humans_ should have food. “Hi, little monsters. Is Strax behaving himself?”

Hope nods. “He’s okay. He wants to fight, but we keep reminding him that he’s got creaky bones.”

“Then he just gets sad,” Rita chimes in. “And says he’s ohb-soh-leet.”

“Then we have to remind him that he isn’t obsolete because he has us,” Hope says. “Honestly, Auntie Tish, we know some odd people.”

“We really do,” Tish agrees.

“Strax has been around for a long time, sweetie.” Martha sighs. “I think some days he’s still depressed about Madam Vastra and Jenny. But you be nice to him, unless he deserves a good shin-kicking to remind him of what he’s supposed to be about. I think we’re about to start, so you girls be good, all right?”

“Love you, Mum! Love you, Auntie Tish!”

Martha’s screen swaps back to Ianto. “See you through the satellite feed in a moment,” he says, and then ends the call before either of them can say anything.

“Torchwood efficiency,” Tish mutters.

Martha shrugs and pockets her mobile. “Someone has to be, though. I was right—Cooper’s waving people into the next room.”

Tish scowls. “I hate that man,” she complains, but plasters on a polite, political smile when they pass by him on the way into the clubhouse’s dining room. “Posh.”

“I’m just glad it’s not a bloody tent,” Martha says.

“Same on that.” Mickey busses Martha’s cheek as he comes to stand with them.

Donna joins them a moment later, hands crossed over her breast. “Feels bloody weird doing this without Tetchy McSunshine.”

Israfil steps up next to Donna, tilting his head in her direction. “You sure about that?”

“Of course I’m—” Whatever Donna is about to say dies in a strangled cough. “How the bloody_ hell _are you doing that?”

“Manufactured meat suits,” Israfil replies, and wanders closer to the center of the room.

Tish scrunches up her nose. “I’ve seen both of the odd ginger aliens walk by now. That’s…not right.”

“No, that looks bloody odd,” Martha agrees. “Donna? Informing the rest of the class would be nice.”

“Don’t worry,” Donna whispers. “Pretty sure sunshine there is gonna take care of that part himself.”

Mickey lets out a surprised noise. “Blimey. I know we keep sayin’ it, but the Doctor _really_ came by it honestly, didn’t he? She? They. Goin’ with they.”

“What am I missing? I don’t have a satellite feed active yet because they’re taking their time with plugs and wiring. Slowpokes,” the female Doctor complains through Martha’s comm, loud enough that Tish can hear it easily. Tish is rather fond of that version of the Doctor; she seems sensible. Mad, but sensible.

“Wait, hold on. Looks like it’s time to be good little primary schoolers and hush up, Doctor,” Martha whispers as the CDS stands up. A moment later, the satellite feeds flicker to life, one at a time. It isn’t just Ianto, the female Doctor, and the Brigadier, but also a bloke who dresses like a sloppy computer programming type, General Jacobson, Marshal Sutton, Lieutenant General Adams, the DDG out of MI5 they’d recalled from Ireland, several reps from the Defence Cabinet and Civil Service, the Home Secretary, Permanent Secretary, and the Foreign Secretary, who is linked up from Brazil. Another monitor lights up, revealing the PM, who’s frowning at them from an undisclosed location. Tish hurriedly smooths her hair back and hopes it isn’t a complete disaster, even though she loathes the PM almost as much as she does DS Cooper. Two of the monitors are active but remain dark; Tish suspects that the royal family is listening in to stay informed, but are trying to keep things mum.

The room is almost as crowded as that bloody tent had been yesterday morning. Torchwood London and Torchwood Cardiff are taking up space and refusing to apologize for it, while Magambo has a full squad in UNIT dress standing with her in pointed reminder. The representatives from the London Resilience Group, ESCG, and SCG are clustered together, and behind them are MEG representatives from each emergency service and transit authority within London. Tillington, the Surgeon Vice Admiral covering the Slough area, is speaking with the Celestial the others named Michael, who is…well, Tish has to admit the man is _definitely shiny_, and very fit. She’d just prefer if he’d figure out that his eyes should probably have pupils of some sort. The other Celestials aren’t congregating, but spread throughout the room. Gabriel is quietly leaning against a wall next to one of the MI6 volunteers; Saraquel, who is also shiny in an entirely different fashion, is watching everything from the seat he took on a tabletop. Raguel, who is making Tish question her sexuality, is with Analyst Phillips from MI5, Crowley’s favorite minion. Lucy and Ba‘al are standing together, with Ba‘al one step behind Lucy in an obvious position of deference to what has to be Lucy’s higher rank. DS Cooper and several Directors General, including DG Holland, are clustered closest to CDS Sir Hughes. The Celestial who is (or isn’t?) Israfil makes certain that he’s in easy reach of Sir Hughes before the meeting begins.

“There are so many bloody people,” Donna whispers. “It’s almost as ridiculous as last time, ’cept they’re giving us elbow room.”

“It’s the government,” Trish replies quietly. “You sort of get used to everyone crowding into a too-small room just to yell about how important they are.” In comparison to a lot of cabinet meetings she participated in before jumping ship for Torchwood, the evacuation meetings have been calm pools of rationality.

Sir Hughes, at least, had the chance to catch a bit of shuteye at some point during the night, but he still looks rough. All of them do, really, even the Celestial lot. Tish desperately wants a shower, a change of clothes, and maybe to cry in a corner for a bit before finding a hiding place and having a nap.

Sir Hughes’ opening statement effectively silences the room. “The very first things I want to know about are fatalities and casualties.”

Lieutenant Colonel Magambo inclines her head and is first to speak. “Re-established UNIT forces suffered the loss of two squads, both who’d volunteered to come in and assist before the recall order. Their sacrifice gave us enough time to finish evacuating northbound pedestrians, aided by certain benevolent assistance. Their names are already in the database created for such a purpose, though I don’t know how many have been granted access as of yet.”

“We’re working on it,” the Brigadier says, glancing at something behind her. “This is an effort between many different groups. I’ve been given an estimate of fifteen minutes before we’ll all be able to update the database with the necessary information for the fallen. They all deserve to be recognized for their efforts for the past two days.”

Sir Hughes nods. “We won’t forget that those of UNIT came to London’s assistance when they didn’t need to. Next, please.”

Nik Patel and Caroline Graves—who really does pull off a rather terrifying Thatcher impersonation—exchange unhappy looks. “MEG reports that they lost a full complement of transit volunteers working in one of the outbound tube stations,” a man standing behind Patel says. “Most of them were part of the London Underground, sir.”

Patel reaches out and gives the man a brief pat on the shoulder. “Retrieved CCTV footage shows that we lost two constables from that breach, as well. They all worked together to keep the Racnoss away from the civilians until the train left the station. We don’t have idents for them yet, but we’re working on it.”

“Thank you.” Sir Hughes lets out a brief sigh. Tish is familiar with that expression from her years in politics. The man is military; as far as he’s concerned, the MEG volunteers _are_ civilians, and they were killed on his watch. “Please continue.”

“Torchwood Three lost our primary medic and her escort when a breach point was overrun. Three fatalities and one casualty, still unknown if they’re going to survive their injuries.” Jack swallows, his eyes a bit red-rimmed. “I know that’s not much in comparison to what a lot of you are dealing with, but Torchwood Cardiff is a smaller operation than Torchwood London. The others are taking it pretty hard.”

Tish glances up at the monitor. Ianto’s eyes are bloodshot, and he looks grim enough to commit murder. “Chelsea Hopkins?” she murmurs.

Martha nods. “Her, Thomas, Loonat, and Stretton. Bhagat’s still in surgery.”

Mickey speaks next. “Torchwood London lost a full demolitions team from the fourth breach. They sacrificed themselves to seal off the tunnel and died in their own demolitions blast. Kept that lot of bloody alien spiders out of London for a bit longer, and probably saved a lot of lives.”

The casualties and fatalities continue. Martha and Tish end up holding hands, their grip too-tight, but Tish can’t relax. She was safe during all of this, but Martha and Mickey—they weren’t. It could easily be their names being spoken. The British Navy, RAF, and the Army all have their own losses; most of that lot went down making certain the MEG volunteers from fire, paramedics, A&E, and the constabulary made it out of London safely.

“Forty-three fatalities, with one hundred twenty-three casualties amongst the armed services and volunteer divisions. That is much better than I thought we’d fare after the Racnoss entered Greater London.” Director Holland bites her lip. “Civilian losses?”

DS Cooper looks shifty, definitely wanting to evade the question. “Technically, none. So far, at least.”

“Why technically?” General Mayfield asks. “Either we have them, or we don’t.”

“We’re legal immigrants, you sodding knob. Yes, it counts as civilian losses!” The bloke who looks like the computer programming type snaps, scowling out from the screen. His skin turns bright cobalt blue for a moment before it’s back to human-looking. That has to be Nat out of Redhill, though it’s the first time Trish has seen him. “We lost a craft to the Racnoss. Fortunately, only the pilot was aboard, but he was a good man with a family who volunteered to assist. He lived in this bloody city and I don’t care if you’re feeling nervy about _aliens_, given that you’ve got an entire city full of alien planet-eating spiders right now!”

“Fair enough,” Sir Hughes says before Cooper can open his mouth. “That loss will be on file, and the family will be looked after. Right, Torchwood?”

Jack glances at Martha and Mickey before nodding. “If I have to fight for a pension, I’m gonna be seriously pissed off, sir, but yeah. We’ve got it handled.”

“The other one is…problematic,” DS Cooper says. “The US ambassador’s wife is on the casualty list for potential catatonia, but that’s not certain. She had a bad reaction to—oh, hell.” Cooper grimaces in resignation. “Ambassador Thaddeus Dowling from the U.S. is dead.”

“Bloody hell,” Sir Hughes breathes. Several of the military types are swearing. None of them are fools—losing the American ambassador in the current political climate is a potential nightmare ready to fall on their heads. “Someone tell me that was not our fault, right now. I do _not_ want to be the man to tell Her Majesty that she has to tell the U.S. president we lost their ambassador on our watch.”

“Even if he was a wanker.” Tish glances at Israfil, who has a tight-lipped frown on his face. He’s now standing next to Jack and the Doctor—well, Doctors plural, and Tish is trying to ignore that part as much as she can—who’ve all moved closer to Sir Hughes. That statement hadn’t been loud enough to carry through the room’s concerned chatter; she’d heard it only through Martha’s comm.

Tish doesn’t disagree about the ambassador being a wanker. It just feels a bit crass, is all, given that the man is dead.

“It wasn’t our fault. We did our best to prevent it.” Lieutenant General Adams looks so frustrated that Tish wants to give him a coffee and a biscuit, the poor bastard. “Dowling was on the ground with the reporters we were _also_ chasing out of the city. The Ambassador tried to insist that for the sake of his countrymen, he needed to be one of the last ones out of London. Utter rubbish and foolishness, but it’s a moot point. All of his refusals to leave despite military escort and outright orders to evacuate are on camera,” Adams continues, rubbing at a red patch on his forehead that looks like concrete burn. “One of my teams was close to a breach point. The ambassador likely didn’t suffer when the Racnoss landed, but as I nearly lost a full squad to his ridiculous need to posture for the cameras, I rather wish he had.”

“Otherwise, that’s it. Well…” Vice Admiral Tillington takes off a pair of reading glasses that are doing him no favors at all. “I don’t know what our casualty list is going to look like after the Racnoss are gone and the quarantine lowered, given that we have at least two children and two, er, allies trapped within the quarantine zone.”

“Would you like an update on that?” Israfil asks, but even his accent is off. Tish was getting used to a rather precise RP, but that’s too much of a drawl, getting fairly close to a northern burr.

The Doctor Trish met years back, the one who looks far too much like the ginger twins, turns his head to look at Israfil. “What, telepathy or—how the bloody _hell_ did you do that?” the Doctor sputters a moment later.

“What? We’re twins,” Israfil replies, smirking. “Can’t you do that?”

“I never, ever want to find out,” the Doctor says flatly. The one who’s supposed to be Younger Doctor looks quizzical…right before his eyebrows try to mate with his hair.

“Nope, not even _remotely_ curious,” the older and female version of the Doctor says by vid relay. “Well. Maybe a little curious.”

“NO,” the youngest Doctor orders. The oldest Doctor subsides with indignant-sounding muttering that’s definitely not in English. “I mean, we’d be the worst way to try that out, anyway. Pretty sure you shouldn’t swap bodies with _yourself_.”

“Okay, yeah. Good point,” the female Doctor admits. Tish abruptly realizes what’s going on, what Mickey and Donna recognized before any of them.

Oh, shit.

“Sorry for the confusion. They’re all having a moment because Israfil and I literally traded places. Hi, there.” Crowley glances around the utterly silent room. “Really? There are alien ships in the air, Celestials with wings flying about, people being teleported here and there, Racnoss on the ground, London under quarantine, three bloody Time Lords who are actually the same person sticking their nose into things, and _this_ is where it hits the unbelievable point on the meter? Really?”

Crowley rolls his eyes and calls the bow that Phillips mentioned him using to his left hand—literally, one moment there’s nothing, the next, he’s holding a strung bow. Then he switches it to his right hand, where it becomes Israfil’s staff. “It’s just like that, except we did it with us, instead.”

“Is that a dimensional shift, teleportation, a wormhole, or something entirely new and different?” an unfamiliar voice asks.

“Oi!” the female Doctor shouts. “No. Absolutely not. You bloody well behave yourself and stay out of this!”

“Someone is shifting matter from one place to another without a power source, including their own insides, and you think I’m going to be able to be _quiet?_” the new voice squawks. “Did you hit your head when you decided to fall into a great big hole in the street earlier, as well, because it’s apparently made you stupid!”

“Stop insulting her, or you’ll never get an answer to your very interesting question,” Crowley says.

New Voice makes a strangled sound. “Okay. Done. Bargain accomplished. Which is it?”

“Not a wormhole, definitely. That’s flashier and folds very large chunks of space-time. I suppose a mini-wormhole, maybe? S’not teleportation, that’s an entirely different feel.” Crowley pauses. “Actually I’ve never had to explain this before. Can something be a dimensional shift and a mini-wormhole at the same time? Do you speak maths? Because that’s so much easier.”

“I speak _all_ the maths.”

Tish glances up at the female Doctor, who has her head resting in her hands. “Please don’t tell him how to do the thing.”

“Why not? It’s not like it would matter. Israfil and I can only do this because we’re twins. Soul-linked. Don’t think you can math yourself a soul-link.” Crowley pauses. “Wait, maybe? Never tried that, though. Probably a bad idea.”

Admiral Bolling loses his temper, which takes quite a bit of pressure. “Excuse me!” he yells. “I’d like to know who you are—” He points at Crowley, who raises both eyebrows, “—and I want to know who just cut into an encrypted feed to babble about wormholes!”

Crowley glances at Sir Hughes. “It’s a fair point. Would you like to verify me for them before the lot of them start panicking—it most definitely is _not_ an alien thing!” Crowley snaps at one of the cabinet members. “Extra-dimensional and extra-terrestrial are not—oh, bollocks, I give up. James?”

Sir Hughes blinks several times before apparently deciding to just go along with the fresh chaos. “All right, then. If you’re Officer Crowley of MI5, temporarily trading places with Medical Officer Israfil Crowley, then, er, tell me something only the two of us would be aware of.”

“That one’s easy. When you were eight years old, Susie accidentally set your stuffed bear on fire,” Crowley says. Tish is rather fascinated by how Israfil’s body language is so utterly _Crowley_ right now. “She didn’t mean to or anything. Complete accident, given she was three years old and all. The part that only you know about, given that Susie doesn’t remember the incident, is the fact that I fixed the bear. Good as new. That do it?”

Sir Hughes reluctantly nods. “It does.”

“If you will hear my words…” Tish glances at Ba‘al, who holds themselves with a poise the bloody Queen would praise. “I’ve known the twins for…for a very long time. Yes, they used to do such a thing, this _trading_, far more often. I didn’t think they’d been in recent practice though.”

Crowley shakes his head. “We hadn’t, and having normal eyesight is bloody weird. Your turn, mystery person who speaks maths.”

“My name is O, as in the letter, not the exclamation, though that’s fun, too. I work in MI6, in a department officially called Extraterrestrial-Interplanetary Relations, created after UNIT was disbanded and everyone thought Torchwood was no longer a player in the game. By the way, the entire department is just me, because dead C decided aliens were nothing more than a lark, and the department is most often referred to as ERROR because my coworkers think they’re absolutely hilarious. Therefore, thank the former C for your lack of alien invasion-planning for London. I actually did submit a bit of proactive planning that was meant for the Resilience Group. It got shredded.” O pauses. “Good enough?”

The Home Secretary and Permanent Secretary both nod. “He’s legit,” the Permanent Secretary says. “I, er, might also have participated in calling that department an error.”

“You didn’t notice me poisoning your coffee in retaliation for a month, either,” O mutters.

“O!”

“What?” O snaps at the female Doctor. “It’s not like it was fatal poisoning, just inconvenient. Besides, it’s MI6. Do you have any idea how often people do that to each other for fun around here?”

“I liked it better when everyone would just off to hit a pub and drink until gravity stopped making sense,” Tish hears, probably from one of the older MI6 volunteers.

Sir Hughes whaps the nearest table with a rolled up sheaf of blueprints. “As much as I find this to be fascinating, Mister Crowley has a valid point about the oddities we have otherwise accepted without difficulty during this frustrating time. I, for one, would appreciate having a direct report on the situation within the London Quarantine Zone. Please, the floor is yours.”

“Right.” Every bit of playful smarm disappears from Crowley’s expression. “So, we’ve found and rescued three military personnel—two are British Army, one is Torchwood. The latter’s a bit too unconscious at the moment to tell us if he’s Cardiff or London, but Israfil is pretty sure they’ll live. One of the army types isn’t so bad off, but he’s so bloody traumatized that he’ll be dealing with PTSD from hell later, and I’m almost being literal. Two children were rescued from Ilford, ages seven and four, and yes, Tim and Millicent Lewis were deliberately abandoned by their foster parents, who were apparently in CDS’s system just for the money. I hope someone with self-restraint finds that pair before I do.

“Aziraphale and I are both fine, if anyone’s wondering. We’ve found a place to hole up in Canary Wharf that’s possibly tall enough to keep the Racnoss off our backs for a bit. Lower floors are blocked off, and it helps that the outside of the building forgot what friction is.” Crowley takes a breath. “Taking these five survivors into account, there are still twenty-one other people in London. The plan is to find them and keep everyone in one place. That’s the best chance we have at keeping them all alive. Personally, I’d really like to live through this, too.”

“We only missed twenty-three people, not counting our own casualties.” Patel looks like he’s about to collapse in relief. “It could have been so much worse.”

Caroline Graves nods, her hair a frazzled grey mess. “The percentage estimates were a great deal higher. Twenty-three is a God-send.”

“I’m not sayin’ anything about that last bit.” Crowley glances around and frowns. “Where the fuck is Uriel?”

“She was discorporated during the fighting. Not dead,” Michael immediately clarifies. “I assure you she is not. I’ve already spoken to her by mobile, Crowley.”

“Okay. Good.” Crowley glances at Patel, Cooper, and then turns his attention to Lucy and Ba‘al. “Maghunta is still in London. Three of her minions were discorporated. Two of them are still with her. She’s sort of allied with us, and sort of fixated on killing every Racnoss she can find.”

Lucy raises an eyebrow, but Ba‘al is the one to speak. “Thank you for informing us as to their fate. We didn’t know if they had escaped Central London.”

“You’re welcome.” Crowley turns back to Sir Hughes. “My brother is done patching up the soldier who was in worse shape, so we’re about to switch back. The Torchwood type might gain us a third defender when they wake up, but those are still shit odds. Keep in mind that we’re on a timer, yeah?”

“A timer? Why are we on a timer?” Jack asks, frowning. “Timers are bad.”

“We’re on a timer because there are thousands upon thousands of hungry bloody Racnoss running around Greater London. There are only two of us, _maybe_ three, capable of defending twenty-six other people once we’ve found them all. You do the math, Brothel Boy.”

Then Crowley shakes his head and his posture shifts back to what Tish would expect from the other twin. “Oh, wow. I’d forgotten how odd it is to do that,” Israfil says, flexing his fingers before a decidedly serpentine tongue flickers out of his mouth. Tish is ashamed to admit that her first thought is not about it being odd, but wondering about its potential. Then again, the man’s spoken for. Just her rotten luck.

“Israfil, I’m assuming?” the Younger Doctor asks.

Israfil nods. “PTSD from hell for that one poor bastard might be putting it lightly—yes, my brother and I can speak to each other,” he adds when the shock wears off and the muttering begins. “You might not be able to teleport through Black Fire, but that fire won’t stop me from talking to Crowley up here.” He taps his temple. “But, I can’t reach Aziraphale through Black Fire. As my brother already explained, it’s much more of a spiritual link between us than a scientific creation.”

“Were you ever going to _warn us_ that you and your sibling were capable of such a thing?” the Brigadier asks, scowling down at them via the satellite feed.

Israfil tilts his head. “My brother and I used to swap corporations to fuck with our family. Why would we bother with warning you lot? That spoils the fun.” The Brigadier huffs and glares at him in response, but she might as well have been glaring at a stone.

“I’ve been watching fucking UFOs flying about for a good thirty hours now. We’re in new territory, but it’s familiar territory, people!” General Mayfield growls. “What I want to know is this: Ilford is marked as being properly checked, house by house. _How did we miss those children?_”

“Or anyone else,” Vice Admiral Tillington adds.

A military colonel slowly raises his hand, wincing. “That might actually be my fault, sir. I told them to use MI6’s x-ray technology to check each house instead of doing a full sweep. I meant it to save us time, and it did, but…”

“MI6’s portable x-ray scanner. You used that, but didn’t check the—” the mysterious O makes a noise like a tea kettle boiling itself dry. “Are you all complete sodding morons?”

“I hate to say it, given who I think I’m talking to…but yeah, same question.” Tish’s Doctor pulls a face that’s mixed baffled and horrified together. “Are you _all_ sodding morons?”

Chief Marshal Collins glares at the army colonel. “If you were playing on my team, I’d sack you. At best, I’d demote your arse for making that sort of call without checking in with command!”

Martha suddenly winces. “Copper,” she explains, sighing. “Copper and lead block x-rays. We only use lead in medical applications because it’s cheaper.”

“There was a big decorating resurgence with copper not so long ago,” Donna says. “Lots of people put copper or tin ceilings back in their kitchens, or put loads of it on their walls. Mum was driving me mental, wanting me to replace a perfectly good kitchen ceiling with the stuff.”

“Not to mention if it’s an older row house, there’s likely generations’ worth of coats of paint on the walls. Lead-based paint.” Graves rests his forehead on one hand. “Oh, for God’s sake.”

“Even water pipes that might not’ve been upgraded to code, or bloody terra cotta planters!” Youngest Doctor rolls his eyes. “No one would’ve needed to hide on purpose. Their surroundings would’ve done it for them!”

“How do you people get out of primary school without knowing these things?” O sounds bloody snide, but it’s sort of a valid point.

“All right, skip that, we can all point fingers and blame each other later.” The Brigadier takes command, easy as breathing, and the CDS doesn’t contest her on it. “How do we get past the M25 quarantine in order to rescue the remaining civilians?”

“We’ve already attempted sending a helicopter over the, er, wall of fire.” Tish notes the wings on the RAF man’s uniform and suspects he flew that mission himself to have gained a spot in this room. “I thought we’d successfully cleared it until all instruments went dead. I managed to land us outside the quarantine zone with only a few bruises to show for it, but it was a near thing.”

“Lucy?” Gabriel calls, a polite verbal nudge.

Lucy shakes her head. “There is no way to speed up the fire’s burn. It will last as long as it will last—at least five more days, if not longer. Given that it usually takes a while for the Racnoss to starve to death, I would hope for longer.”

“They don’t have five days,” Israfil says. It isn’t an accusation, but Lucy’s expression flickers as if it might’ve been interpreted that way.

“I’d just like to know what the hell kind of fire we’re dealing with,” one of the cabinet members snaps. Tish has no idea why Martha coughs to clear her throat, Mickey snorts, or Jack turns an interesting shade of red.

“Your statement is far more accurate than you know, and I wouldn’t dwell on it if I were you,” Michael says.

“I pointed instruments at that fire—okay, I pointed everything at it that the TARDIS has for measuring anything.” Tish’s Doctor scrubs the back of his neck. “It’s hotter than seven hundred degrees Celsius _and _one hundred forty degrees below absolute zero at the exact same time.”

“All right, that’s all I needed to hear.” Graves gestures at General Mayfield. “I’m stealing every able-bodied soldier you have. We’re putting a barrier between that fire and the evacuees before we have someone decide that frying and freezing in the same moment is a bloody grand idea.”

General Mayfield just nods. “Fine by me. Do what you think is best.” He glances up at the Admirals, who are both pulling unhappy faces. “You should probably take that as blanket permission to recruit from any resource available, unless those other two sources have a problem with it?”

“Don’t pull anyone away from housing or medical,” the Brigadier replies at once. “Otherwise, UNIT agrees with the idea of keeping people away from a scientific impossibility.”

“It’s not impossible! It’s just…improbable. Someone please come and get me before I resort to stealin’ a car. I’m probably bad at stealing cars. Or really good at it. Haven’t tried yet,” the female Doctor babbles. “I wanna know what that Black Fire stuff’s made of!”

“SIT!” Israfil barks. At least a quarter of the people in the room scramble to find chairs. He sighs and glances up at the ceiling. “I only meant _her_.”

“I’m _sitting!_” the female Doctor retorts. “Stop doing that!”

“Torchwood is fine with temporary employee theft, just don’t take anyone away from something vital,” Jack says, but O speaks at the same time and Tish can’t make it out.

“Care to repeat that?” That’s Graham O’Brian up in Sheffield with the female Doctor, who must’ve been listening in the entire time. Not that Tish blames him; she’d do the same thing. “I could’ve sworn you said you’d do something nice.”

“I _said_ I’d go and fetch her as long as she actually stayed in a bloody chair,” O grates out. Tish raises both eyebrows. That is some seriously belligerent reluctance. “Or have you not yet figured out that the Doctor isn’t joking when she says she’ll steal a car to get here?”

“No, I know she’s not joking. I’d just like to see her make it down the stairs right now without falling on her face,” Graham says.

“Oi!” Then the female Doctor sighs. “What’s the catch, O?”

“I get to ask you all the questions I want. Professional curiosity and all.”

“Sounds more like flirting to me,” Tish murmurs.

Martha smirks. “I wouldn’t want to be getting on the Bad Wolf’s bad side if I were him.”

“Deal!” the female Doctor sings out, which, for some odd reason, makes Lucy look _exceptionally_ pleased. Tish decides it’s probably safer not to know why.

“Hey, one quick question.” Tish’s Doctor steps forward so everyone can see him. “Did anyone out there today report any _flying_ Racnoss?”

“No,” General Mayfield answers after a quick conference with the other military heads. “We didn’t hear a thing about flying alien spiders. Anyone else?”

“Nada from Torchwood,” Jack says. “I was listening for it after Donna warned me, but…nothing.”

“Oh.” Michael looks simultaneously relieved and terrified. “Their queen, their Empress—she didn’t produce any male offspring.”

“Or we haven’t seen them yet, Michael,” Gabriel says. “There are a lot of Racnoss out there, after all.”

“What’s the problem?” Nat asks, a streak of blue appearing on his cheek before vanishing again. Tish wonders if it’s a stress reaction. “If there aren’t any flying male Racnoss, that’s a good thing, right? It means they can’t breed.”

“It means they’ll be _desperate_,” Michael corrects, his hand resting on the archaic sword sheathed at his waist. “Very desperate. Not only are they starving, they know they’re in danger of extinction. It will make them more prone to reckless violence.”

“It makes them less predictable. Instead of calculated attacks, they’ll just be thinkin’ of feeding themselves so they can live long enough to have another go at producing males for breeding,” the female Doctor says. “Bugger, that’s not good.”

Youngest Doctor resettles his coat over his shoulders. “We have to figure out how to get through Black Fire—with the TARDIS, at the least. We need to get everyone out of there before the Racnoss find them.”

“Then our priorities haven’t changed,” Sir Hughes says. “Doctor, you already have your allies. Do what you can, and we’ll provide support if possible.

“Moving along. We need to discuss the camps, we need proper lists of what homes and hotels took in refugees, and I want updates on anyone who’s been shifted into a hospital or a medical encampment.” Sir Hughes leans back on his heels and points at the LRG people. “Go.”

* * * *

Rose listens to far too many people natter on about details they could just upload for everyone to read at their own pace. She’d overheard Tish say something about people crowding into too-small rooms to talk about how important they were. She likes that; she would have used it on Pete’s board of directors if she’d ever had the thought herself while her dad was alive.

No sense mourning lost opportunities. She’s got somewhere else to be at the moment, and it’s not like this lot’s going to notice she’s gone. Most of them, anyway.

She doesn’t want everyone’s attention, so she finds herself a spot near the back of the room, half-shadowed by the wall. Then she reaches out to one of the few people she knows who’ll hear her, because he’s never _not_ listening.

Israfil glances over his shoulder and spies her, well, lurking. He’s a sensible one, though. He doesn’t make noise or blab, just asks, _What do you need? Or who, I guess._

Rose tilts her head at the two Doctors standing together. _The one what looks like you and is still angry about not-ginger_.

Israfil smiles and turns back around. A moment later, he elbows the Doctor firmly in the side. Rose clasps a hand over her mouth to rein in the giggles when she watches the Doctor nearly go and bite his own tongue in half to keep from squawking aloud. Not how she’d have done it, but the message is passed along.

Rose only has to wait a minute for the Doctor to slip through the mass of people. He leans against the wall in full view of the others, blocking sight of Rose from anyone who might be looking. “What is it?” he asks quietly. “Please make it interesting, I think my brain is going to start melting out of my ears from listening to this bloody inefficient disaster.”

“I’m always interesting,” Rose counters, smirking. “Do you still have Jack’s vortex manipulator?”

“It still smells like ash and sulfur, not sure why anyone would want it.”

“Nice to know that the giant demonic serpent left an impression, I suppose,” Rose says. “I need to borrow it. Babysitting job.”

The Doctor isn’t stupid. He knows exactly what she means to do the moment Rose says it. “Rose…I know you never met him, but you know who that is.”

“Oh, yes I have. Met him, I mean. Well, Bad Wolf met her once. Curiosity or sommat, I’m not sure. Happened a _while_ back, and sometimes I don’t remember everything.” Rose leans forward and nudges the Doctor’s shoulder with her head. “I’m not gonna be the one in danger. Not the other you, either.”

“You think…you think the—you think this O is in danger,” the Doctor says. She doesn’t blame him for sounding disbelieving. It’s not been long enough for him and them, not yet.

“We’re not sure,” the Bad Wolf whispers. “It’s related to the ancient story of the Timeless Child.”

The Doctor stops feigning attention for the military lot and turns around, his eyes bright and intense. “That story’s not ancient.”

The Bad Wolf smiles. “And the _Moment _never happened.”

He sucks in a breath. “Time can be re-written.”

“Now, if you were a powerful prick of a Time Lord—well, an _evil_ powerful prick of a Time Lord,” Rose amends, and the Doctor rolls his eyes. “If you were an evil, powerful prick of a Time Lord who might’ve built your past, your power, your legend, on things that you never actually did, and someone uncovered your naughty little secret…what would you wanna go an’ do about that?”

The Doctor runs one hand down his face and sighs. “He knows something.”

“O knows many things,” the Bad Wolf responds. “He’s waiting for the eldest-you to figure out what one of those things happens to be.” She reaches out and touches his nose with a fingertip. “You need to watch the glowing bit. You’ve done a grand job of tappin’ that energy down and hiding it away from the others, but when Israfil got your attention for me, he almost noticed.”

“No, not yet, it’s far too soon—” The Doctor holds up his hand and grits his teeth when he sees the tips of his fingers shining with golden light. “Don’t you dare,” he hisses, and the glow fades.

“Vortex manipulator.” Rose holds out her hand. “Now, please.”

The Doctor huffs and retrieves it from his coat pocket, handing it over. “How did you know? It wasn’t the energy. You already knew. Was that just the Bad Wolf, paying attention?”

“No.” Rose quirks an eyebrow. “I’ve seen you regenerate before, remember? I know how twisty and shirty you get about it. I’ve also seen this face of yours _nearly_ regenerate, Doctor. I know what to expect. What I don’t know is how it happened, or why you’re so intent on holding it off—no, your regeneration doesn’t happen here, that one answers itself,” the Bad Wolf murmurs. “She missed. The Doctor missed the time she was aimin’ for by about fifty hours, didn’t she?”

The Doctor swallows and nods. “But coming here, it also pulled me out of my personal timeline and into someone else’s, even if I’m the someone else. Being in the wrong place, it slows things down.”

“An’ you wanted every single second you could get, yeah?” Rose reaches up to stroke his face, and he leans into her touch like an affection-starved cat. “I don’t blame you. Not when it’s every moment that matters.”

“How much time have I got left, Bad Wolf?” the Doctor asks, resting his hand over hers. “Because you’re right, I can’t regenerate here. That’d be…it doesn’t and _can’t_ happen here.”

Rose and the Bad Wolf reach into his skin and his thoughts, one of the times when they’re the same person with the same goal. The Doctor lets them pass, but nudges them in a specific direction. There; they can see his thoughts and watch the chain of events unfold. A nuclear power station, miniaturized and built in a rush from a conglomeration of plans put forth by differing companies, but money, declared Joshua Naismith, was no object. Only the best for Daddy’s Little Girl, Abigail Naismith: an enriched uranium AGR nuclear reactor to power an Immortality Gate, which wasn’t any such thing at all. Just a healing device for putting people back together based on their own genetic template.

A rushed job created a rushed clean room: the nuclear reactor’s own gamma rays purified the air in a lead-lined circulation system. That decontaminated air flowed into dual control chambers, maintaining sterility, keeping out organic particulates—but it was the Naismiths who were cruel enough to force one person to be in one of the two clean booths at all times. That person would be trapped, only let out if someone else went into the other clean booth to take over operations. Their employees accepted the cruelty because, they reasoned, it was worth the pay.

Money might not have been limitless, but contractors can be a lazy lot. The clean-air system also ended up being the emergency dumping ground for any alpha rays resulting from minor incidents in the reactor. They were just harmless particles, after all. No need to worry. Even if a worker inhaled them, the sealed booths would protect anyone else.

The nuclear reactor’s graphite cooling rods started to deteriorate when more power was demanded, power the reactor wasn’t designed to produce. Inadequate cooling from an inadequately prepared system broke graphite down into carbon particulates. Carbon dust filled the air, bombarded by radiation from a reaction that veered away from standard.

Ternary fission reactions are rare, but a nuclear reactor is the best place to cause one, and the results are just a bit different than your harmless alpha rays, your dangerous gamma rays and beta rays. You also gain Helium-4, harmless stable isotope. Tritons, radioactive isotopes of tritium; short shelf-life internally or externally, and most often non-lethal.

Alpha rays aren’t dangerous in the fractional amounts designed to be released by the circulation system. Long-range alpha particles are another matter: they’re highly radioactive, faster than their non-lethal cousins…and deadly.

What’s building now isn’t a single burst, not a fractional amount. Lethal levels of radiation fill the chamber of that air circulation and decontamination system, which was designed to decontaminate the wrong thing entirely. Particle after radioactive particle builds in a reaction that has an end, but that end will produce enough long-range alpha rays to burn a human to ash from the inside out. Anyone inside the clean booths will die; anyone standing in that radiation’s unobstructed path will be exposed to enough radiation to make cancer not a possibility, but a lethal certainty. Death by radiation poisoning is still death, even if it takes a while to catch up.

All of that radiation waits to be released in a single burst via a safety measure that’s only safe as long as nothing ever, _ever_ goes wrong.

It’s almost a law of the universe that if something can go wrong, it will.

Wilf Mott, Donna’s wonderful grandfather, saves a trapped lab rat in a clean suit, but he’s not wearing one of those. It wouldn’t even matter if he was. This is death coming, and Wilf will take it if it means the Doctor lives…

…but the Doctor wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he let it happen.

He is a Time Lord and he understands the nature of particles, particulates, radiation, atoms, and the entire nature of the universe. He opens the door and takes in every single bit of radiation from a faltering nuclear reactor until there is nothing left to absorb. Wilf lives; it’s worth it.

Wilf lives, but that won’t save the Doctor. Alpha rays were already the deadliest type of radiation to ingest, to breathe in, the sort of poison that takes chromosomes apart, rips up DNA and spits it out like confetti, eats the body’s cells alive with an endless, monstrous appetite, melts everything that makes up the immune system, turns bone marrow to watery uselessness, breaks down every organ until there is nothing left to destroy.

Long-range alpha rays do the same thing. They just do it faster. Bonus: it hurts more.

The only reason the Doctor is standing upright, unburnt, is regeneration energy. He’s holding it back, slowing his own death, but still those cells are renewed as that energy tries to do what it’s meant for. Removing himself from his own timeline slowed it further, but not forever.

“Monday afternoon,” the Bad Wolf/Rose says, hearing her voice echo as they speak together. “But your coming regeneration will be obvious to others before time.” Then it’s the Bad Wolf alone: “What is it that you have left to do before another’s face becomes your own?”

The Doctor smiles. “Oh, I’ve only got two more stops left. I suspect one might be a wedding, and then I’ve got an appointment with New Year’s Day, a bit after midnight, in 2005.”

Rose blinks tears from her eyes and smiles. She knows that moment, because it was _her_ moment, the first time in her life that she thought _everything is going to work out just fine_ because of a stranger’s words, spoken from the shadows.

She could say so much, but it’s all been said already, or it will be, one day. Instead, Rose chooses something else. “Somewhere in there, I saw you talking about how you’d named a galaxy for someone called Alison. Who was she?”

The Doctor’s head lowers until their foreheads are touching. It’s a light brush and a heavy weight both. “Alison was my daughter. Susan’s mother. She died during the Time War, along with almost everyone else of my House. Not even changing the _Moment _can bring her back.”

Rose tilts her head and presses her lips to his, a gentle kiss that tastes like a flood of the energies he’s holding at bay. Beneath it, though, it’s just him, her Doctor, a bit of tea and minerals and the petrichor that’s unique to this regeneration.

“You behave yourself,” Rose whispers against his lips. “No button-pushing while I’m gone, right?”

The Doctor uses his thumbs to wipe her tears away, and she returns the favor for him. “Not even if it’s a really useful button?”

Rose pretends to think about it. “Maybe that sort.” She steps back and activates the vortex manipulator, and in the seconds before the teleport kicks in, says, “Take Crowley’s advice, Doctor. They need you, and you need them.

“Give yourself that moment.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So far, S12 canon hasn't gotten in my way. *G* Gonna squee about episode 5 a lot. But not this week.


	35. Out of Hand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Therapy time again, darling O: did you tell the Doctor that she’d become just like you if she pushed that button because you wanted to bring her down to your level, or did you tell her that to remind the Doctor of why she shouldn’t?”
> 
> “Does it make sense if I tell you that it’s both?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this story abruptly stopped talking to me after the last chapter, and except for some parts that were already written, *refused* to cooperate on progressing any further. Despite what some people might think: no, it had nothing to do with the finale for S12. (In fact, the finale fit in so well with TS&TS that I cackled a LOT.)
> 
> Recently, only in the last few weeks, the story woke up again. Can I get a wahoo?

“Get out.”

The blonde human-who-wasn’t-really-human smiles at him, smug and very pleased with herself. “Nope.”

O—he really is getting rather used to that again—resists the urge to yank out his own hair. “Look. I didn’t invite you in here. I have no _idea_ how you even managed to get inside my bloody TARDIS! But since you’re not invited, and rude even by _my_ standards, I’d thank you to get the bloody hell out!”

The Bad Wolf crosses her legs and leans back on his dining room table, her backside parked on documents written in Gallifreyan that O had quite rightfully stolen, thank you. “So you want to be giving yourself away that easily, then?”

O pauses, narrowing his eyes. That is plotting; he loves the sound of plotting. He’d like it even more if it wasn’t coming from _her_. “Giving myself away how?”

“Well, if you rush up to Sheffield in a TARDIS and then rush right back, even the most distracted human is eventually going to realize that there is no possible way you could have traveled that quickly, especially if you were to do something as mundane as drive a car. The trains out of London aren’t running because they’re still evacuating people elsewhere. Same goes for pretty much every other method of transit. Of course…” The Bad Wolf holds up a vortex manipulator that looks as if it’s had a very bad day. It still works; O can feel that right off, but the cuff itself should be replaced just for the sake of proper sanitation. “If you had a teleportation device and a helpful friend who’s already used the teleporter in front of witnesses, you could still pilot your TARDIS to Sheffield in comfort, and no one would so much as bat an eye.”

O eyes the Bad Wolf speculatively. “This is blackmail. I don’t actually disapprove, but it’s not usually the style for someone who’s been a companion of the Doctor.”

The Bad Wolf chokes on sudden laughter. “You have the most fascinating blind spots, d’you know that?”

O scowls. “I do not.”

“You’re a bad liar when you’re sulking, too,” the Bad Wolf points out. “Of course it’s blackmail, you nutter. I get to go with you, see to my girlfriend, and keep an eye on her so she doesn’t overdo it with that bloody spleen injury. You get to keep your cover story intact. Also, my being about might ensure that her Fam doesn’t strangle the life out of you the moment you step outside your ship. Besides, do you even know where you’re going?”

“Mostly.”

The Bad Wolf gives him a quick up-and-down glance. “Is that jealousy I’m seeing?”

“No!” O frowns. “Mostly not. Not for you and her…dating, or whatever it is you’re doing, which is creepy, by the way. I have no interest in anyone’s biological messy parts. Not this version of me, at least. Wait.” O thinks on it for a moment. “Yeah, no, no interest this time around.”

“You’re jealous because it’s the Doctor paying attention to someone else.” The Bad Wolf sighs. “You both need so much therapy. Y’know that, yeah?”

“You said that last time,” O retorts.

“Mm. How’d it go, then?” the Bad Wolf asks. O has the uncomfortable, crawling sensation that she actually cares about the answer.

Ugh, why did a powerful creature spat up by the Time vortex have to take such an interest in him?

“It went.” O gives up and waves his hand. “Tell me where we’re going, then. _Mi casa es su casa_, or at least it is for a few minutes before you _leave me alone_.”

The Bad Wolf rattles off an address in Sheffield. O leans over the controls set against the monitors, which shows him every conceivable angle of everything outside the TARDIS doors. His ship thinks about the address, considers their options, and selects a proper landing spot.

“Have you ever killed anyone before, Bad Wolf?” O asks without looking up.

“On accident, a few times, an’ I hated it. Always said if I was ever gonna go that route, I’d rather it be on purpose,” the Bad Wolf replies. O doesn’t like that he likes that answer. “Done it a few times in self-defence. Or are you asking about murder in particular? Killing and murder aren’t the same thing, Master, and you know that very well.”

O’s hands tighten into fists. “The last time we met, I’d just become Missy, because Missy was literally the last face I’d seen. I knew I was going to regenerate into _her_. I tried hard to stay who I was, but it didn’t work. I wasn’t the same after that regeneration. You told me it was because a proper regeneration repairs deteriorating neurons—which is correct, it does. I should’ve regenerated right after the mess with Rassilon, but I didn’t want to. I liked being that particular flavor of me.”

“No,” the Bad Wolf interrupts. “Try again.”

O lowers his head in acknowledgement even as he grinds his teeth. Lying to terrifying entities from the vortex is usually a very bad idea. “I _believed_ I liked being that flavor of me.”

“Better.”

“Shut it!” O snaps. “You asked me a question, you bloody terrifying construct of Time. I regenerated, and everything was suddenly so different, so bright. I don’t think I’d had thoughts that clear in years. The very first one I had was the recognition that I’m sitting in my TARDIS, and there is an impossible being in front of me, dumping tea _into_ my TARDIS’s innards and telling me to breathe in the tannic acid fumes already.”

“Tea is good for you,” the Bad Wolf comments.

“You asked how therapy went.” O turns around to glare at her. “I had clear thoughts in my head and the _second_ thing I realized was that I’d murdered someone I would, later, become quite fond of. I don’t tolerate just anyone, even if the Doctor is prodding at me, being a bastard and not taking ‘No’ for an answer. I’m not patient or saintly, or all that concerned about the lives of insects!

“But: the longer that particular life lasted, the more Missy interacted with Bill Potts…I realized she wasn’t the insect sort. She was interesting, Bad Wolf, curious and intelligent. She wasn’t versed in maths and calculations and things I’d always considered to be unforgivable lapses if one didn’t know them. But the way she understood people—any type of person, no matter the species—that is so very rare. Worse, though, so much worse: Bill was kind to me, even when she was terrified of me.

“She was kind to me, and every time I looked at Bill’s bloody flawless face, I remembered murdering her. Not that she refused to die when it happened, oh, no. Not her, not Bill Potts. She’s the first true Cyberman in history to refuse to be a Cyberman, and no, the Cybermen Incident of 2014 doesn’t count. That wasn’t conversion. That was converting decaying matter into metallic decoration.

“Even after everything that should’ve made Bill Potts human was literally stripped out and tossed in a rubbish bin, she refused to go along with it. I was proud of her for that, but it didn’t matter. None of it ultimately mattered. From my perspective, Bill Potts had already been dead for well over a century, and there wasn’t anything to be done about it.”

O flings a rock from Australia at the Bad Wolf, who catches it and starts tossing the rock up and down with one hand like it’s a stupid American baseball. “To answer your question? No, therapy did _not _go well.”

“Better than you think it did, maybe.”

“That’s shit,” O says. “What’s the point of Time Lords if they can’t fix it when someone like Bill Potts happens?”

“I never said Time Lords had a point.” The Bad Wolf puts the rock down on the table. “So, if you’re a being made from Time, facing down the entire Dalek fleet, their mad Emperor included, is it self-defence if you turn the whole of them into dust, or is that murder? I’ve asked myself that question a lot over the years, and I’m still not sure.”

O grimaces. “It was a fleet of bloody Daleks who were about to murder you to death. Self-defence, obviously.”

“Obviously,” the Bad Wolf repeats in a mocking tone. “Oh, I can see why he likes saying that. The Bad Wolf is me and I am her, a consciousness self-created and spread throughout the whole of time and space. This means, clever O, that I was the _Moment_ both times the Doctor brooded over it after he stole me from the Citadel Archives.”

O sinks back against the controls, feeling faint. He doesn’t like the sensation. “He used the _Moment_. The Doctor. She told me what she did to Gallifrey, but I never once thought of that particular device. The Doctor used the most powerful destructive force in the universe, designed to host a conscience so that it had the chance to persuade others not to use it. He used the _Moment._” He takes a breath. “Wow. I really missed the mark on encouraging her to perform mass murder, didn’t I?”

“The Doctor who knew nothing but war, the regeneration who rejected his name out of shame?” The Bad Wolf nods. “The first time, he used it. He thought it was the only way to stop the Time War from destroyin’ everything, believed it utterly.”

“He was right,” O says flatly. He’d run from that war until there was literally no place left to go.

“A little bit yes, a little bit no,” the Bad Wolf replies. “I didn’t tell him my name that first time. We hadn’t met yet; I didn’t think it mattered. I was wrong, though. So, in a sense, I’ve murdered untold numbers of innocent people.”

“Congratulations.” The word feels heavy on O’s tongue. “That’s a very exclusive sort of club to be joining, you know.”

The Bad Wolf smiles again, leaving O with an uncomfortable chill. “Then he _Moment_ came again, because sometimes the only thing you can do to fix a mistake is to cheat. I told the Doctor my name. It was enough, that; just a single tiny little detail made him curious. He’s like a cat that way. Couldn’t resist asking why a crafted conscience had a name. I convinced him to look ahead, to see what he would become after Gallifrey was gone. He’d changed quite a bit in four hundred years. By that time, the Doctor knew what they were truly capable of, and the _Moment _will never come again. Probably, anyway. I suppose it depends on what she decides to do about—oh, sorry. Spoilers.”

She draws in a deep breath and hops off the table. O takes an involuntary step back and bruises himself on the edge of the console. “It’s the oddest thing, Gallifrey,” she says. “Maybe it’s all that time travel, all that artron energy concentrating for untold centuries in one place…but Gallifrey is never a fixed point. It literally can’t be. You lot tell yourselves that some things can’t be changed, and then you off an’ do it anyway.”

O stares at her in something approaching very unwanted terror. “What is it you really want?”

“You tried to recreate the _Moment_, even if you didn’t realize it at the time. Few months back or so, yeah?” The Bad Wolf rolls her eyes when he scoffs. “I know you’re ahead of her right now for how events play out, so knock off with it. You pushed, and you pushed, and you broke past those old defences. You stood there with the Timeless Child in the middle of a destroyed Citadel, daring her to press a button and end her life, your life, and the life of every single biological organism left on Gallifrey. Not many by that point, though, were there?”

O says nothing. The Bad Wolf already knows who he truly hated.

“Therapy time again, darling O: did you tell the Doctor that she’d become just like you if she pushed that button because you wanted to bring her down to your level, or did you tell her that to remind the Doctor of why she shouldn’t?”

“Does it make sense if I tell you that it’s both?”

The Bad Wolf tilts her head. “Yeah, it does. But since we’re in Sheffield…shall we?”

O gestures for the Bad Wolf to lead the way. “The faster the better. Stop being bloody terrifying. That’s _my_ job.”

The Bad Wolf glances back over her shoulder before she opens the door. “Is it really, though? Have you ever heard about Demon’s Run?”

“Asteroid named by the Crespallions, site of the Battle of Demon’s Run, another instance of the Doctor pretending to be morally superior to everyone else. Boring,” O says.

“But there’s a prophecy that goes along with it. Take it outside the box and consider what’s been on your mind of late, the things you’ve gone and learned about. Then you tell me if you still think it’s only about a battle on an asteroid.” The Bad Wolf recites the prophecy in a disturbing cadence that is too creepy to be sing-song.

“_Demons run when a good man goes to war._

_Night will fall and drown the sun,_

_When a good man goes to war._

_Friendship dies and true love lies,_

_Night will fall and the dark will rise,_

_When a good man goes to war._

_Demons run, but count the cost._

_The battle's won, but the child is lost_.”

O repeats the words under his breath and then glares at the Bad Wolf. “I thought I told you to stop being so bloody terrifying?”

The Master isn’t the only one who escaped Gallifrey, fleeing the Death Particle the Cyberium cooked up, nasty little sentient liquid intelligence that it is/was. He’d kept his TARDIS in the room that housed the Matrix, just in case; he’s always excelled at survival. Two other ships left Gallifrey around the same time. One TARDIS held the so-called _Fam_, and arrived safely back on Earth in their proper time and place. The other, the one with the Doctor inside…didn’t. O tracked its flight path, found it parked next to a police box that told him to sod off—but also told him she wasn’t there.

O always knows where the Doctor is. Always has. It’s those bloody shared genetics, even if it took him millennia to figure out the _why_ of how he knew.

The Doctor was complaining earlier about how she couldn’t find O, not a hint of him after their last bit of fun on Earth. He’d learned how to hide from her by then, on every conceivable level.

Now O has the same problem. Until he dropped back into the Doctor’s personal timeline about a month before the events that will send her to Gallifrey to meet a few dozen regenerating Cybermen, O couldn’t find the Doctor.

The Master _still _can’t find the version of the Doctor that should be matched up with his personal timeline. The Timeless Child. The one who is always, _always_ there.

That silence is far more terrifying than the Bad Wolf hanging about on his ship and refusing to go away.

* * * *

“Are you ready for this, son?”

Ryan looks at Granddad and shakes his head. “God, no,” he says, blowing out another breath and shifting his weight from one foot to the other, trying to keep himself together. He didn’t want another run-in with this nutter, not ever, let alone after he’d tried to kill them all.

Yaz had—_very_ reluctantly—pointed out that O hadn’t really tried all that hard to make certain they died. No weapons from someone who had no qualms about guns, didn’t try blowing them up directly, and might even have known about the Doctor mucking about with the aeroplane to leave them instructions. He’d wandered off whistling instead of undoing any of it. O could have sabotaged that bloody plane so completely that there would be no flying of any sort after that explosion. He hadn’t, and he’d certainly had enough time to plan it all out. Twice.

Ryan hates this sort of logic, because it makes sense. He’s just worried the Doc has a huge blind spot for the sadistic nutter, and that makes it his, Granddad, and Yaz’s job to make certain there are eyes on the Doctor at all times.

It’s not that old-looking house that turns up inside the Sheffield place owned by that Crowley bloke. It’s more like they suddenly have an extra upright cupboard with a door. Ryan supposes there are benefits to a working chameleon circuit, but he’s gone soft for that blue police box.

The door swings open, but a blonde white woman steps out first. Well, she’s got bleached blonde streaks among much darker brown hair, anyway, but close enough. That one has curves Marilyn Monroe would be high-fiving her over, but the woman’s eyes throw him off a bit. Ryan can’t tell if they’re brown or gold, or maybe both. She’s either another Time Lord, or…well, there’s all sorts of odd things wandering about London at the moment.

At least this one dresses sensibly, denims and a sensible hooded jumper. Ryan doesn’t have much of an eye for fashion, but there are days when he wants to beg the Doctor to take her bloody bracers off.

“Hallo,” the new girl greets them all, smiling and waving. “How’s it going, Wilf?”

Wilf smiles back at her. “Going well, love. You lot, this is Rose Tyler. You’d have heard her over the radio the last day or so. Former companion of the Doctor, and she got on pretty well with my Donna. Gets on again now, I reckon, but y’know what I meant.” Wilf peers behind Rose. “Is he hiding in there?”

Rose glances over her shoulder. “Oi, move it. I can easily go back to terrifying you again.”

O abruptly stomps out of the “cupboard” door, which is now a lot wider than it was a moment ago. “Do you ever _stop_ being terrifying?” he asks, and then faces the others.

Ryan’s first glimpse of the nutter is sort of a letdown after everything that happened last time. He’s in pleated trousers, belted, dark blue dress shirt tucked in proper, open collar, sleeves rolled up—he looks like a bloke who just left work and can’t be arsed to change clothes, not like a madman bent on making everyone’s mobiles capable of mucking about with their biology.

“Wait. Did you just say you think _she’s_ terrifying?” Yaz asks, pointing at Rose.

“That is because she _is_, and if you monkeys had any sense, you’d pay more attention to the terrifying bit,” O snaps. “Hello, not so nice to see you three. You, I recognize.” He points at Wilf. Ryan isn’t sure if it’s grand or not that Wilf knows O and Rose both. “Shouldn’t you be dead by now?”

Wilf snorts. “Not likely at the moment, but thanks for rememberin’ enough about me to know that dyin’ from old age was possible.”

O’s expression twists into a horrific grimace. “Oh, bloody hell, you’re right. I did remember—erugh. Let’s get this over with. Where’s the idiot? You call her Doctor, but right now, it’s idiot.”

Granddad steps up, giving O a flat stare. “You listen up first, and you listen good, because I’m not repeatin’ myself. These two, Ryan and Yaz, are going with you lot down to London. Insurance, like, and no, you don’t get to protest, so stow it. You hurt the Doctor, and I know there’ll be a long line of folks who’d love to hunt you down for it. But these two?” He gestures at Ryan and Yaz. “These two are _my_ family. You hurt them, and I’m willing to make a deal with the devil himself to make certain you never have a moment’s peace and quiet ever again.”

O snorts. “What, no death threats? Amateur hour, here.”

Granddad smiles. “Nah, death threats are easy. Making certain you’re followed around by an unescapable mariachi band that won’t stop singing ‘I’m Henry the Eighth, I Am?’ That’s loads better.”

“Hm.” O frowns. “This ‘not hurting them’ deal. Is that only for _this_ particular go-round, or for every go-round? Because sometimes I still have moments when rolling for a sanity check should be a requirement, but unfortunately someone ate the dice. It was probably me, if you’re wondering.”

“I’m realistic,” Granddad says. “I’ll settle for this go-round if you’ll agree to it. But you’d best take off after this mess with London is over with. I don’t think you should see us for a nice long while before you come about sticking your nose into things again.”

“Deal.” O pulls a face. “Just…bugger everything. Where’s the idiot?”

Yaz is the one who points at the sofa pushed up near the east window. “We bullied her into having a nap, because she wasn’t doing it on her own. She did manage to teach Wilf and Graham how to use the comm setup, though. Again.”

“Won’t stop mucking with it,” Ryan explains. “I mean, every time she does it works better, but then it’s a learning curve for the rest of us.”

O glances briefly at the comm equipment and the chaotic disaster of wiring all over the table and floor. “She never could manage a clean workstation.” Then he walks over to the couch.

The Doctor is sleeping on her right side, face resting on a musty, grandmother-looking throw pillow. Her left arm is resting over her side, curled up protectively. She didn’t even bother to take off her boots and coat. It’s right weird, mostly because Granddad says he’s only ever seen the Doctor sleep the one time, right at the beginning.

O frowns and pulls something out of his pocket. “It’s not a weapon, I just want see if that type claiming to be a healer knows how stubborn our body parts can be.”

All of them glance at Rose, who nods. Honesty from O, then. That’s a switch.

The scanner thing doesn’t make a noise or display holograms, but whatever it reveals has O rolling his eyes. “They did their best, I’ll give them that. This breakdown is just what comes of splicing new genes into a species that isn’t meant to have them, and then deciding to keep adding parts to support the nonsense that doesn’t belong.”

Granddad blinks a few times. “Bloody _what?_”

“Never mind. You’ll find out. Maybe. Eventually.” O sighs. “I don’t want to do this! I just wanted a nice confrontation without any complications that I didn’t put there myself. What good is a dramatic clash when the fun ends too soon because the other person’s body pops off and lands them on the floor? Why is this my life?”

“Because you let Rassilon bring you back from the dead,” Rose says dryly.

O glares at her. “That was rhetorical!” Then he bends down and scoops the Doctor up off the couch.

“Hey, whoa, what are you doing?” Ryan yells. Yaz pulls something from her pocket that Ryan is pretending he doesn’t know a thing about, mostly because he doesn’t know what it is. It’s Yaz though, so it might be something lethal.

O sighs and twitches his head back and forth, gritting his teeth. “It’s called a kidnapping, you idiots. We’re off on a slight detour to the forty-ninth century because this idiot needs a new cloned ectospleen.”

“Fifty-second century’ll do a better job of it,” Rose suggests.

O thinks about it and scowls. “Yes, fine. We’ll make it a fifty-second century kidnapping. Are you lot coming along, or what? Why waste a good threat? They tend to only work the once, and then I get bored.”

“Why’s she needing a new spleen?” Wilf asks. “I mean, I believe you, but I thought your lot healed up better than that.”

“We do. Usually. Remember that bit I said about popping in too many parts to deal with genetic splicing that should never have happened in the first place? No, wait, don’t remember that. In fact, forget I said it. Let’s just go with the fact that it usually takes a solid regeneration to put some of our cranky bastard organs back to rights.”

“_Brief_ shortcut to the fifty-second century,” Yaz insists.

“It’ll be as brief as organ cloning and replacement can be,” O agrees, raising an eyebrow. “It takes about six hours. We can cut it down to two if you threaten their lives. Makes them ever so much more efficient.”

“I think I can only put up with you for about two hours without killing you, so I might not be much bothered by the efficient bit as long as you’re not actually murderin’ people,” Ryan says.

“Yes, yes, fine. No murdering. Not today. Just keep in mind that tomorrow is a different day.”

It’s a bit odd to step into the Master’s TARDIS. For one thing, it looks like someone’s house, not much of a proper space ship at all. For another, Yaz is familiar with it, and she’s already poking at O’s stuff.

O puts the Doctor down on a camp bed near the wall. Ryan definitely understands the kidnapping part now, because the Doctor doesn’t wake up for any of it. She never does that— “Oi, did you drug her?”

“No. I didn’t need to. This is no fun at all.” O stalks over to his ship’s controls with a flat, angry look on his face. The console for directing things is attached to a bunch of monitors. Ryan can see every part of the Sheffield murder house on those monitors, inside and out, which includes Granddad and Wilf watching them leave. Then all the monitors are black but for the one in the middle, showing off the Time Vortex.

“There’s something you two should know.” O turns around after a moment, looking…odd. Maybe that’s his expression when he’s not threatening and murdering and making things explode all the bloody time. “I’m a bit ahead of you right now. The next time you see me—and I think that’s just you, actually,” O says, pointing at Ryan. “Next time you see me, we haven’t done this yet. You have to pretend this never happened. You have to react like the last we knew of each other was a hostile mobile phone takeover.”

“Hostile mobile phone takeover,” Yaz repeats. She glances up at the ceiling and shakes her head before sharing a look with Ryan.

“I really don’t see it being all that hard,” Ryan says. “I don’t have to off and pretend like you’re not a wanker.”

“More than a bit of one,” Yaz mutters.

“That’s not very nice. I’m putting your family matriarch type back together. You should be thanking me,” O retorts.

“You tried. To blow us up. With an aeroplane,” Yaz emphasizes.

“Not that we don’t appreciate you putting the Doctor back together proper,” Rose says, “so long as you don’t mind that everyone has their eye on you. I wouldn’t make it worse for her right now. Not if I was you.”

O stares at Rose, grimacing in fear at her gold-glinting eyes, before he decides to pretend she doesn’t exist. He claps his hands together and grins at Ryan and Yaz, looking quite a bit like a mad piranha. “Excellent! Hope you’ve all had your inoculations. We’re going to a medical station with the best cloning technology in the universe, but it’s the fifty-second century, and they’re not so big on quarantine regulations right about then.”

* * * *

Aziraphale returns to the hotel on the Isle of Dogs by way of miracling himself to the upper floors. It’s more taxing, that way—he’s never been quite as good at moving himself around on Earth that way as Crowley is—but in this case, rather necessary. The street entrances are sealed off. The lifts are locked down on the ground floor, adding a thick, durable barrier to the lift shafts aside from their doors. Those shafts and the stairwells below the highest storeys they’ve claimed for themselves have been filled with…well, concrete, he thinks, but Crowley wasn’t being very specific about the material so much as he was busy making certain that every passage a Racnoss could fit through was sealed off.

The same could not be said of the air conditioning and ventilation systems, given that the hotel’s upper windows most decidedly do not open. Aziraphale and Crowley don’t need air that often, but their rescued humans need to breathe. He countered that potential difficulty by finding each of those egresses and shrinking them down so that no Racnoss could possibly fit. The stonework compressing around those smaller vent shafts should prevent any ambitious alien spider from attempting to climb them. The smaller shafts mean that the cold air now blasts out of the compressed system, but Aziraphale finds it to be a pleasant breeze after flying and running about an eerie, empty London to find their other survivors.

“You can let go now,” Aziraphale says in a gentle voice to his passenger. “We’ve arrived, and you’re safe.”

The teenager, perhaps a new university student, slowly lifts her head from Aziraphale’s shoulder. Jacky Williams (whose full name is Jaqueline and she hates it) glances around before starting to unpeel her long arms and legs from their unyielding grip around Aziraphale’s chest and arms. “Er…thanks. Uhm, sorry, mate. I just don’t like heights all that much, and there was flying…”

“It’s quite all right, my dear,” Aziraphale assures her. He’s still pleased that Jacky is alive to be worried about such things. The Racnoss had been _very_ close to discovering her before Aziraphale intervened. “However, we’re on one of the highest storeys of a very tall hotel in London, so I would advise that you perhaps avoid the windows.”

Jacky considers that for a moment. “As long as the floor stays put, I’m okay with that. I like a good view as long as I’m still in the building for it.”

“Excellent!” Aziraphale nudges her in the direction of their gathered humans. One isn’t human at all, but one of London’s legal alien immigrants. They were so intent on helping everyone else get out of the city, they forgot to get themselves out until the transports were away and the M25 was being consumed by Black Fire.

The Torchwood soldier that Crowley had helped to put back together is still resting, but his color is much improved. The very unexpected full swap the twins had pulled, leaving Aziraphale suddenly in Israfil’s company, was responsible for most of the healing. It was also responsible for Aziraphale squawking in surprise and nearly hitting Israfil before he recognized what they’d done.

“What if they figure it out?” Aziraphale hissed at Crowley once he’d traded back, returned from some sort of logistics meeting in Slough.

“So what if they do?” Crowley regarded his bloodstained hands while pulling a face.

Aziraphale snapped his fingers, cleaning Crowley’s hands so that they were no longer a distraction. “You might not be vulnerable to hellfire, Crowley, but in case you’ve forgotten, _I still am!_”

Crowley gave the sleeping Torchwood soldier a brief prod to make certain he would stay that way for a while before grinning at Aziraphale. “You certain about that?”

“Yes!” Aziraphale replied, but then hesitated. “Unless you know something that I don’t?”

“Angel, with all of the talk that’s gone on for the last, er, however long since last August, I didn’t think me spelling it out would be a thing. All this stuff about belief and what it can do. Ba‘al picked up one of the holiest items in existence and killed Samael with it because they believed they could, and their wings aren’t coal black any longer. Not sure they’ve noticed that part, though.” Crowley shook his head. “I flew through a wall of hellfire yesterday, angel, and I did it because I believed I could. Also, didn’t want to get eaten by the Racnoss, so that’ll certainly motivate you.”

Aziraphale pursed his lips. “That’s all well and good for you, Crowley, but you’ve always had a bit more faith than I do.”

“Angel.” Crowley turned so he could lean forward and peer into Aziraphale’s eyes. “Your faith in Heaven to do the right thing was absolutely unshakeable until they proved, beyond any hint of doubt, that fucked-up Gabriel and his then-minions didn’t care about stopping Armageddon. Unshakeable, Zira. That’s a great deal more faith than I had in much of anything aside from us.”

“Fine,” Aziraphale huffed. “But I’m not in any mood to _test_ that idea.”

“Yeah, I don’t think I could really handle you being eaten by a wall of flame right now, either,” Crowley admitted. “But the belief thing might be something to keep in mind. Just in case.”

Aziraphale had also asked Crowley when he first showed Aziraphale the hotel if Crowley had known that the building’s uppermost three storeys were devoted to the hotel’s restaurant and bar. Crowley seemed miffed by the idea that he wouldn’t know of every single place in the city capable of pouring a pint or serving a meal.

“The rooftop is easy access from here, too. Easy to defend. Terrace,” he added for Aziraphale’s benefit.

Aziraphale hadn’t been able to resist the thought, climbing two sets of stairs from the thirty-eighth story until he was able to stand on the terraced roof. The breeze was lovely, the ability to take flight from this point was excellent…and there was a beehive.

That gave him a moment’s pause. It was an excellent idea, of course, merely unexpected.

“We should stay out of sight, though,” Crowley said after Aziraphale came back downstairs. “Better you know where it is, but…”

“Take no chances, yes,” Aziraphale agreed. Before Aziraphale come back inside, he had been able to hear the Racnoss screeching somewhere off to the east. He’d broken out in goosebumps at the sound.

Tim and Millie Lewis are still sitting with the British Army servicewoman, the one who isn’t so traumatized that not even Aziraphale can be certain if they’re asleep or comatose. Captain Granger is letting her arm rest in a sling so she doesn’t strain it too soon after three shattered bones were pieced back together. Tim and Millie decided at once that they liked her, and haven’t left her side since Crowley rescued and healed her. Captain Linda Granger has children of her own, all of them off safe at home in Brighton with their grandparents, and she’s furious that anyone would leave such darling children behind in all this mess.

Aziraphale’s rescue of Jacky places their London retrieval numbers at ten, with eleven left to find. Captain Granger has already volunteered to keep an eye on everyone when Aziraphale and Crowley go out to find the others. The healing Torchwood agent is a friend of hers, former British army, and quite capable of assisting her. Once Lieutenant Mick O’Riley is awake and coherent, the humans will have two guardians—three, if the alien named Kierto Toth (“k’iErtoth,” Crowley had mumbled under his breath during introductions) is being honest regarding their skill with their holstered energy weapon. At least that one looks far less like a ridiculous science-fiction ray-gun than the one carried by Professor Song. Kierto is a minor shapeshifter, they claimed; Aziraphale thinks they must be, to look so very human, but Kierto also says that the Racnoss have made them nervous enough that they keep forgetting to be certain their eyes look Earth-proper. Aziraphale has so far seen them solidly purple, red with green pupils, solidly black, and faceted like a dragonfly.

“What is it you really look like?” Aziraphale asks.

Kierto gives Aziraphale an up-and-down glance. “What is it you look like naked?”

“I—I beg your pardon!” Aziraphale sputters, and then blushes as he realizes his faux paus. “Oh. I see. My apologies.”

“S’all right.”

Aziraphale keeps himself occupied for a little while by seeking out beds from the downstairs suites that were hidden in sofas and plushy chairs. Aziraphale won’t be sleeping until they are out of this Racnoss-filled city, but he makes certain there are twenty-seven beds tucked into quiet corners of the upper floor, complete with linens, pillows, and blankets. He debated keeping the sleeping area down here, but the closer they are to that terrace and its potential easy escape route, the better. The extra bed means Crowley can have a bit of a lie-down if he needs it, too.

He seems to be just in time. Captain Granger comes up to him with a wide, sheepish smile. Millie has fallen asleep over her shoulder. “Don’t suppose there’s a place that these two can have a bit of a kip? Just like me, they didn’t sleep a wink last night.”

Aziraphale smiles and points out the stairs. “The floor above us. Look for the sofa beds and…are they called chair beds?”

“I don’t much care what they’re called as long as these kids and I can sleep on it,” the captain replies. “Thanks, sir.”

“Oh, there’s no need for—oh, never mind.” Aziraphale gave up on the military types calling him _sir_ by noon yesterday, because they were not going to stop doing so for anything. Instead, he snaps his fingers, making certain every bed is made and ready for occupancy. The good captain needs to rest, not concern herself with linens.

He spends a great deal of time dithering, though he spends several minutes speaking to Andy Sanchez and Alena Petrov. They’re a couple, dating for five years, both thirty-three years of age. Andy is from Honduras; Alena from Moscow. Both are deaf and were living in a basement flat with no real means to see the flashing emergency lights outside. They’re introverts who both work overseas jobs by way of computer, game with people from their native countries, and sleep when they have no reason to leave their basement flat…and they don’t use a television. Through practicing his rusty BSL, Aziraphale learns that neither knew anything was wrong until the overhead shots of the Racnoss in London appeared on the news in Moscow. That was followed shortly thereafter by loss of computer network access, and by then, it was far too late to evacuate. They bolted their door, considered their recent grocery delivery to be fortunately timed, and hoped to be left alone until the Racnoss were dealt with.

Jeffrey Davies is a MEG volunteer for the Underground. He’d been found behind rubble, bleeding and knocked silly when he was caught by either a demolitions blast or a collapsing tunnel—he isn’t quite sure. Marge Heimel is ninety-six and quite literally watched movies and napped her way through London’s evacuation. She readily admits to being old enough that she’d forgotten what the emergency flashes and sirens were meant to be for. She’d turned off her hearing aids and pulled the blinds in her tiny pensioner’s flat to shut out the light and noise. Aziraphale is a bit worried about her; she can’t move quickly, and they might need to.

Donny “You can’t have my last name, you bloody government spooks!” of Enfield was, quite honestly, a pain in the backside, but he didn’t deserve to be eaten for it. Morgan Jacobi lived alone, hadn’t turned on a radio or a television on Saturday at all, and had the ill fortune of living nowhere near one of the siren broadcasting points. Allison Grant and her son, five-year-old Adrian, had the bad fortune of being forgotten when a transport meant to retrieve two people who didn’t have one of their own had failed to appear. It was several miles from their home to the nearest evacuation zone, and by the time Allison realized the transport wasn’t coming, they were trapped.

Crowley pops into the room just as Aziraphale has finished mentally tallying their human acquisitions. A child just past toddlerhood has a stranglehold around his neck. Another child of approximately the same age is wrapped around Crowley’s left leg. A woman already shrieking with incoherent anger launches herself from Crowley’s grasp.

“Hi, angel,” Crowley says, prying one of the children, possibly fraternal twins—yes, Franklin and Jefferson, six years old, and rather tetchy—from his neck. “Meet Nanny Bigot, there.”

“Er. What?” Aziraphale glances at the woman, who has fluffy grey hair, a sour, sharply lined face, and a very wide, open mouth. The words she is shouting are beginning to make sense, and none of them are very nice. “Oh, that’s—Crowley, you shouldn’t call people such things!”

Crowley snorts. “You haven’t heard anything yet. This is Brat One and Brat Two, by the way. She’s their step-grandmother, and she’s teaching them some really…bad…” Crowley grits his teeth and tugs harder before the boy will finally let go. “Habits!”

Aziraphale watches as the freed Jefferson immediately runs not for his step-grandmother, but for the first breakable object he can find. “Oh, dear.” It’s the very first time he’s been grateful that the bookshop is already destroyed; if they were hiding within its walls, he has a strong suspicion these twins would do their best to tear them down. “Oh, dear, dear, dear.”

“I have so many better words than that—shut up!” Crowley yells at the older woman. Aziraphale glances at her and listens to what naturally slots itself into place: Natalie Bell, sixty-one years of age, absolutely refused to believe anything about the invasion or the evacuation orders, and…well, Aziraphale is suddenly feeling far less sympathetic. The moment she felt certain the military was gone, she’d taken these boys for a walk. A _walk._ Alien, planet-eating spiders from before the dawn of time are on the loose in a quarantined city, and she took the children in her care out for a stroll!

“I can, er, understand your frustration with her,” Aziraphale says. Mrs. Bell has yet to stop shrieking. So far he has managed to make out the occasional _hellfire, damnation, bastard, freak, God-fearing, _and _abomination_. It’s probably best to stop paying her any mind. “But the twins! You love children, Crowley!”

Crowley glares at him after conjuring an actual blessed prybar in order to remove Franklin from his leg. “Aziraphale, I once tried to teach a kid to be the actual antichrist, and Warlock is more well-behaved than these terrors.”

“You’re a creature of Satan!” Nanny Bigot shrieks.

Crowley rolls his eyes. “You’re a bit late on that, lady! Please calm down and stop trying to shriek and attract the large and hungry spiders who will happily _eat you_.”

That quiets the dubbed Nanny Bigot effectively enough. Aziraphale gets the sense Crowley was rather more timely in his rescue of Mrs. Bell and her step-grandsons than Aziraphale had been for Ms. Jacky Williams. Mrs. Bell grabs the hands of the two boys, whose wild hair _does_ rather remind Aziraphale of Dr. Seuss’s Thing One and Thing Two, and stalks off to lurk on the far side of the building. “Did you happen to find out if those twins have other parents or guardians, dear?”

“Didn’t try. I don’t want to touch that woman’s thoughts. I might catch something.” Crowley slumps down into a chair. “Where does that put us?”

“Eighteen out of twenty-six.”

Crowley glances up at Aziraphale, a bit of relief shining in his eyes. “Oh. Better than I thought, then. Eight to go—” He stiffens in place and then begins swearing.

Aziraphale feels it, too. Distantly, somewhere between the M25 and Watford, a human has just died in pain. “Oh. Oh, dear Lord. That poor man.”

“Fuck,” Crowley says, sighing. “Down to seven, then.”

“Seven,” Aziraphale agrees, catching sight of Allison gazing at him. “What is it, dear?”

“Go,” she says. “We’re safe enough here. Go and find the others before those things do.”

“You sure?” Crowley asks, watching her with his head slightly tilted. He hasn’t bothered with his sunglasses since they rescued Tim and Millie, who were fascinated by Crowley’s eyes. Crowley isn’t above using them as a lure to capture a human’s interest in this situation, though that might have backfired in the case of Franklin, Jefferson, and Mrs. Bell.

Allison nods. “I’m sure. I’d hate it if that was myself and Adrian still out there, waiting to see what those things were going to do to us. Don’t take too long, mind. Some of us might get nervous.” She glances in Mrs. Bell’s direction. “Or stupid.”

“I think it’s already too late for her on that stupid part. She voted for our PM.” Allison and Jeffrey laugh. Aziraphale translates that part of the conversation for Andy and Alena, who start chuckling. Kierto Toth grins and mumbles something under their breath about being glad they didn’t vote for a wanker.

“Right, then.” Crowley stands up and shakes himself. “Which way do you want to go, Aziraphale?”

Aziraphale listens for a moment. “South. That seems to be the next moment of danger.”

“I’ve got east, then.” Crowley reaches out to gently grip Aziraphale’s hand before he can leave. “Angel. Be careful.”

“I feel as if I should be saying that to you, especially after the last two days.”

Crowley shrugs. “Yeah, but I’m the stupid one. Bad example to follow, me.”

Aziraphale smiles, and gives Crowley a quick kiss. “I’ll be careful, dear,” he says. They time their departure so that they both leave in the same moment.

He finds himself standing on a conveniently flat rooftop in Croydon. There are Racnoss visible a few miles to the north, but they’re on their way to flood this area of Greater London.

Aziraphale glances down at the golden ring on his left finger, admiring the flash of the blue gemstone in the light. He has quite a number of reasons to survive of late, and it’s lovely to be wearing a reminder of them all.

He’s always rather liked weddings.

* * * *

Allison shrugs at Jeffrey, who is still a bit boggled every time Crowley and Aziraphale teleport without using any sort of device. Of course, the teleportation is odd, too, but Allison is currently trapped in London, which is filled with planet-eating alien spiders twice the size of a person whilst the city is held in quarantine by impassible, deadly purple fire. The teleportation and the wings and even Crowley’s golden eyes are rather normal compared to that. Besides, Aziraphale had rescued Allison and Adrian from their little house while Crowley had acted as bloody _bait_ for the spider aliens, giving them the chance to escape. At that point, she didn’t care if they were actual demons. They’d saved her little boy, and that’s good enough for Allison.

Allison rolls her eyes as Nanny Bigot starts ranting about hell-bound queers ruining society for decent, God-fearing folk. She definitely saw that kiss, then. “Hush up, you old bat!” Allison yells. “Some of us understand the concept of gratitude!”

Bad choice of words. Allison buries her face in her hands as Nanny Bigot begins spouting off about harlots and women daring to have children without a proper man in the household to keep things running proper.

Bugger this. “I’M A LESBIAN!” Allison yells. Nanny Bigot chokes and then starts shrieking like a boiling teapot.

“Oh, what an awful racket,” Mrs. Heimel mutters, and promptly lowers the volume on her hearing aids.

Jeffrey looks at her in dismay. “Why on Earth did you do that?”

Allison picks up a bottle of water and twists off the cap. “If she’s going to make noise no matter what we do, might as well find out how many buttons we can press.”

Jeffrey snorts. “That’s a bit evil.” Then he shouts, “MY SON USED TO BE A WOMAN!”

The teakettle shrieking gets louder. Allison glances over at Adrian, who is sleeping right through the racket, and smiles. There are certainly worse ways to kill time while waiting for London’s bigwigs to finish rescuing them.

* * * *

Yasmin Khan discovered early on when traveling with the Doctor that there is a universal truth to hospitals: the _waiting._ Everywhere they go, even in bloody Medieval hospices, it’s the same. You go in, and unless you’re gushing blood or potentially already dead, you sit and you wait. And wait. And wait.

Ryan is slumped in the seat next to her with his arms crossed, eyes closed. “Just don’t think about it. It’s like a watched pot and boilin’ water, Yaz.”

Yaz taps her fingers on a future plastic armrest that is rather like memory foam. The entire chair is made of it, but none of these chairs would dare collapse under someone’s weight. They just sort of…conform. She wants to take one home with her, but she still lives with her family, and they’re already suspicious enough about what she’s really getting up to. “Do you think it’s maybe a bad thing that O got up and wandered off after the first fifteen minutes?”

“Oh, definitely,” Ryan agrees without opening his eyes. “But d’you wanna be the one who goes off to find out what he’s up to? He promised Granddad no murderin’ today, and I actually believe him.”

“No murdering means he could do…well, anything else, really,” Yaz replies. “What do you think, Rose?”

Rose has spent the entire wait so far, an hour and thirty minutes out of the promised two hours, parked on the upper ledge of the surgical reception desk. Yaz doesn’t think it’s bad manners so much as Rose reminding the hospital staff that they should probably do exactly what O terrorized them into doing to fix the Doctor’s ectospleen. “Well…there are worse things O could have found to do,” Rose says, tilting her head in the direction of the corridor that leads to the lifts.

Ryan sits up to look while Yaz turns her head. They watch as O goes racing by, rather mad grin on his face. He’s followed by several security guards racing after him on foot, and none of them look happy.

“Was…was that a hoverboard Segway?” Yaz asks.

“Think so.” Rose’s eyes flicker gold for a moment. “Yes, it was definitely a hoverboard Segway. Not sure what they’re properly called, though.”

Yaz looks at Ryan, whose fingers are twitching against his trousers. “Ryan?”

“I kinda want to ride one,” Ryan says.

“Yeah. So do I,” Yaz admits. “I mean, it’s O, though. You really think we should be doing whatever it is he’s up to?”

“Looks like he’s got hospital security distracted, what with him stealing that first hovering Segway,” Ryan points out, raising both eyebrows in blatant challenge. “You gonna be a copper, or you gonna be a companion, Yaz?”

Yaz resists for a good three seconds before she grins. “C’mon. Let’s go get a hover Segway.”

Rose seems amused. “Have fun.”

“You don’t wanna play, too?”

The other girl shrugs at Ryan. “Someone should wait here. Just in case, y’know? Besides, I already know how much fun they are.”

“Oh, that’s just you being a tease,” Ryan shoots back, and then grabs Yaz’s hand. “Bloody hover Segways! I hate to admit it, but sometimes the mad nutter has decent ideas!”

“At least about the Segway,” Yaz says, because they still don’t know what O did to get the Segway, or all that attention. Of course, there’s only one way to find out.

* * * *

Rose sits back in a relaxed slouch as the others race off, smiling as she listens to the whisper of Time in the back of her head. “This is only a little bit out of hand. We’re never gonna be allowed to come back to this hospital ever again, though. Maybe not this century, either. O just found a laser scalpel. Who just goes an’ leaves laser scalpels out for any nutter Time Lord to find them, anyway?”

She maybe talks to herself a bit too much, but the Doctor has the same bad habit. At least she’ll be in good company for it.

“Uh…Miss Bad Wolf?” The nurse who comes up to her is trembling, her spikey green skin pale with fear.

“Yeah? Don’t worry, I don’t bite,” Rose says. Unfortunately, it doesn’t help. Some people are just a bit too psychic. “What is it, Juu’rei?”

“Uh. I just. Wanted you to know.” Juu’rei wrings her hands, the gesture remarkably similar to Aziraphale’s version, even with the extra fingers in the way. “The Doctor’s surgery is complete. She should wake in a few minutes. Would you like to. To accompany me to the recovery suite?”

Rose hops off the counter, making Juu’rei flinch. Poor love. “That’d be lovely, thanks. Everything go all right?”

“Oh, yes. Cloning the organ was simple, as was the replacement, though…though I do believe the Doctor is our first Time Lord,” Juu’rei says, a bit less hesitant when discussing medical things directly. “Their genetic structure is…it’s fascinating.”

“Yeah, bet it is,” Rose says. Bugger. She’ll have to suggest to O that he might want to make all of the tests and samples for the spleen-cloning be incinerated—without burning down the hospital in the process.

No, better to ask Ryan and Yaz to take care of it. O has the self-control of a toddler who’s just been given a bar of chocolate bigger than his head.

Juu’rei shows Rose to the suite and then all but bolts in the opposite direction. Rose sighs and slips inside, wandering over to the Doctor’s bedside. Her color is much better than before, and she isn’t shifting restlessly at all. That isn’t drugged sleep, but a Time Lord having a real rest.

Not that it ever lasts very long. “Oh, my skull,” the Doctor groans, her brown eyes already flickering open. “Wait, where am I? What happened? Why is it the wrong century? Did someone invent a real Draught of Living Death?”

Rose chokes on a giggle. “Doctor, no. Your ectospleen just needed replacing, is all. We had to find the right century with the right technology to handle it, so here we are.”

“Oh.” The Doctor considers that. “You know, I always forget that’s an option?”

“I know.” Rose helps the Doctor sit up when she starts clambering at the bed rails. “Up you get. We need to go find O, Ryan, and Yaz.”

The Doctor’s eyes widen in horror. “O? You’re letting O run around a hospital in the—” She listens to Time for a moment. “In the bloody fifty-second century?”

“O is the reason you’re not in pain. Or dying,” Rose points out. “Granted, the laser scalpel and the hovering Segway aren’t blending very well right now.”

“Oh, bugger!” The Doctor tosses the blanket aside and nearly falls on her face while scrambling to get out of bed. “Not good!”

“Doctor—DOCTOR!” Rose sighs as the Doctor runs for the exit. “You’re not dressed yet!” They really don’t believe in hospital gowns in this century.

“YOU SAID O HAS A LASER SCALPEL AND A HOVERING SEGWAY! THIS IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN NAKED!”

Rose retrieves the clear sealed bag that has all of the Doctor’s clothes and belongings inside. “Yeah, just like old times,” she says, and bites her lip against a wide grin.


	36. Harbinger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone wades their way through the rest of Sunday. Death threats are just a bonus (unless you're the one being threatened with dismemberment).

“Look, it’s just that I’ve been asking everyone, and nobody else knows why it was the M25 that had to be the fallback point!”

Saraquel regards the human woman thoughtfully. She isn’t frantic about it; she is more concerned about how many London homes might be damaged by the Racnoss, much less the damage done during the evacuation.

His eyes drop down to her lanyard. Caroline Graves, SCG. That would be…the shelter coordination group. There are far too many abbreviations and acronyms floating around at the moment. At least hers makes sense.

“I don’t know the answer to that, Caroline Graves, but I know who does.”

She waves her hand at him in a gesture Saraquel is still attempting to figure out, as it seems to have a multitude of uses. “It’s just Carol, dear. You’re one of the higher-ups in this mess, after all.”

“Civilian Morale has been taken over by some rather competent individuals. I’m more decorative than anything else at this point,” Saraquel says dryly as they begin walking together. That hasn’t stopped Saraquel from tossing out miracles here and there, easing the progress of the encampment that’s forming around him.

The Emergency Evacuation Center, what they’re calling the East EEC (too many abbreviations!) is what would probably be termed a “madhouse” of activity. Humans are everywhere, including the occasional alien. Most of the latter are hiding their true faces and forms from the humans, a sensible precaution. Humans who had been imprisoned for various crimes have been put to work to erect tents for medical, for housing, for meeting areas—honestly, there are also too many tents, and they need labeling.

A moment later, all of the tents have very visible, reflective letters in a pleasant purple-blue shade on a white background, telling anyone capable of reading any human languages or symbols what the tent is for, or who it temporarily belongs to. Much better. Saraquel also gives the prisoners a bit of a boost in stamina, strength, and patience so that none of their official minders accidentally overwork them. The ones who are having unhappy thoughts or are angry about their circumstances suddenly find themselves recalling things that make them cheerful, that soothe their frayed tempers. The violent inclinations are surprisingly few, focused as everyone is on the work, and on occasionally eying the towering wall of Black Fire easily visible to the west. Still, that’s best miracled so no violence breaks out there. The spats are all right; humans have to relieve tension somehow when they’re afraid. Saraquel is more concerned with the ones contemplating bodily violation, physical injury, and murder.

Crowley would have his head for _changing_ their intentions, though. Helping someone feel more cheerful is all right; violating their free will is not on.

Saraquel thinks about it and then snaps his fingers while Carol is distracted. The violence-inclined among all of the humans in the East EEC suddenly find themselves in a building that didn’t exist before, sitting in the middle of what was, five seconds ago, a golf course. The ones who hadn’t been legally imprisoned are allowed to wander the building, though it won’t let them leave. Loved ones will find messages in their assigned tents, telling them where to find their temperamental family member. The others are locked into roomy cells with beds, a good comfortable chair, table, and televisions. (It never occurs to Saraquel that the digital signals for telly broadcasted by London can’t make it through Black Fire, but the televisions work anyway.) Another moment’s thought and each prisoner suddenly finds a stack of _Highlights for Children_ in their rooms. Saraquel found his first issue yesterday and is already rather fond of that particular human publication. Many of these people could do with a reminder about morals, particularly the part where they’re meant to have them.

When Saraquel and Carol find Lucy, Ba‘al is with him, their wings extended, looking bewildered. “I do not know what to do,” Ba‘al is saying.

“That young man—”

“Them.”

“That young person,” Carol rallies, “has wings.”

“So do I,” Saraquel replies. Carol gives him the slightly bewildered look of a human who has far too many other things to worry about to add “people with wings” to the list.

“You don’t need to _do_ anything,” Lucy says. “You’re in perfect balance. If you were tipped towards Above’s side, the gloss on the black tips of your feathers would have returned.”

Ba‘al scowls. “I am still no longer specifically a _demon_, either. You cannot be without one of the lords. The chaos would be unpleasant. It would also generate far too much paperwork.”

Lucy looks annoyed. “One: there is no reason why you would need to cease being a Lord of Hell because your spirit is balanced. Two: one of those positions on the Council has been empty since Hell began to exist, and no one noticed.”

“Lucifer.” Ba‘al draws in a breath. “Samael is dead. This time, they will notice.”

“I am not fond of the fact that you have a valid point.” Lucy glances up at the sky. “Bollocks.”

“I don’t want to be a lapsed Catholic anymore,” Carol mutters under her breath. Saraquel smiles at her before he turns to Lucy and Ba‘al.

“Do you have a moment, Lucy?”

“Lucy,” Carol whispers. “Right. Okay. Do angels listen to confession?”

Saraquel has definitely been away from this planet for far too long. “What’s that?”

“The act of a human wishing to confess all of their sins, in hopes that it absolves them of the terrible things they believe themselves to have done,” Lucy answers in a dry voice. The ladies’ suit from earlier hasn’t changed color, but it’s now in a man’s modern style. Saraquel knows this, because there are days when Gabriel will _not_ shut up about suits. “What is needed, Saraquel?”

“Carol Graves here is SCG in charge of housing during evacuations, so she’s a bit worried about the houses the Racnoss might destroy, which I say she has enough tents to worry about and should leave the houses for later,” Saraquel says. This human’s hair is prematurely silvered for a reason.

“We’ve met. I was merely a different gender at the time.” Lucifer inclines his head at Carol, who makes a choked sound and lifts her hand in a weak wave.

_Close enough,_ Saraquel decides. Translation is in order. “Everyone who was at that meeting in Slough earlier knows that Black Fire extends as deep as it needs to, and as tall as is required, so I doubt it’s fear that’s causing the question.”

“No, not fear,” Carol manages to say, squaring her shoulders in an attempt to hide how afraid she is of Lucy and Ba‘al. They’re all aware of that fright, of course, but it’s always nice when a human tries hard to move past the nature of what they are. “We know that any remaining tube lines we didn’t have time to block are…still blocked. My question relates to the fact that there was already a loop of roadway around Central London, the ring that was used for the first quarantine line. Why couldn’t it have been used for the Black Fire barrier?”

Lucy is being careful not to look directly at Carol, who is probably not in the mood to stare down someone who sometimes has flames for eyes. “The first difficulty would be the timing. Too many of those assisting in this necessary evacuation would have been stranded in Central London, and no one wished to make that sacrifice. The second difficulty is that those roads were not suited to Black Fire. The M25 was designed for it.”

“Designed for it?” Carol squawks, sounding outraged. “Who on _Earth_ would design a motorway to be more destructive?”

“Crowley really did outdo himself with this project, though he now despises it.” Ba‘al looks as if they might be amused. Maybe. “The M25 is in the shape of a particular sigil, one that is…”

“Mathematically designed to encourage and fuel destructive forces. London drivers most certainly count as destructive forces,” Lucy says, smiling at Carol’s indignance.

“Crowley…the tall ginger with a ginger clone and a brown-haired clone wandering about? Him?” Carol gapes at them. “Good Lord, why?”

Lucy flinches at the accidental blessing. “At the time, it was his job to do so. The gingers are not clones, they’re twins. The one with brown hair is his offspring. Do you have any other questions?”

Carol looks in the direction of the burning Black Fire quarantine wall. “No…no. I think I might’ve asked too many. Thanks for your help earlier, and whatever help you’re granting until it’s done.”

Lucy is definitely insulted by Carol’s parting words. “I was only here to assist in slaying Samael!”

“And you’re still here,” Saraquel points out.

“Because it is rather difficult to return to my realm at the moment,” Lucy grates out between his teeth.

Saraquel smirks. “You helped with the evacuation.”

“Saraquel.”

“Pretty sure you’re trying to help the Doctor figure out a means of getting through a wall of Black Fire, too,” he adds.

“Saraquel!”

Saraquel grants Lucy a sweeping bow. “I’m off to find Israfil. I heard rumor of an angry ginger tearing new backsides into incompetent medical practitioners who don’t actually practice healing so much as they practice their ability to hold meetings.”

“Saraquel,” Ba‘al calls in their older, softer voice. Saraquel glances over his shoulder in surprise. “If—if I did not return to Hell. If I wanted to stay on this planet. Do you think Crowley would allow it?”

Saraquel raises an eyebrow. “Ba‘al, right now you probably know my little brother better than I do.” Six months isn’t enough time to catch up on thousands of years. “What do you think he’d say?”

Ba‘al’s expression goes flat. “Crowley would think I was an idiot for believing I needed to ask for such permission in the first place.”

“Sounds about right. I’ll see you two when the blonde version of Crowley’s kid gets here.”

Saraquel wanders over to the medical area of the encampment, leaving a trail of calmed tempers, peaceful, babbling babies, and children who are suddenly more in the mood for games than in making mischief. In short, he is doing his job, though if asked, Saraquel would be forced to admit that most of the time, he isn’t even aware of what sort of affect he has on mortals. He is simply who he is.

He doesn’t know about West EEC or North EEC, but the medical areas of East EEC are pristine, orderly, and calm, possibly because Israfil was not about to take no for an answer when it came to deciding who was ultimately in charge of which encampment. Saraquel once often witnessed his brother be terrifyingly efficient at his job, back during a time when they barely understood what bloodshed, war, or their roles really meant.

Saraquel finds Israfil holding the wrist of a frail old woman, who is either asleep or comatose. He glances around to check for nervous family members or nosy assistants before asking, “Is she dying?”

“She doesn’t yet have Azrael’s mark, but unfortunately, it’s only a matter of time. Not much time, at that. I hope her family finds her sooner rather than later.” Israfil tucks the woman’s arm carefully back down beneath the blanket. Her other hand rests above it, with three different lines of plastic tubing coming out of her skin. Saraquel represses a shiver because of how uncomfortable it looks.

“Why is that, do you think? I thought humans were more resilient than this.”

“Normally, yes.” Israfil catches sight of the bloodstains on the rolled-up ends of his white jacket and flicks at the fabric until the stains vanish. “But many of the hospice and care home patients were in fragile condition already. It’s why they dwell in those places…even if I’m not fond of several of them,” he adds with a growl.

“Right.” Saraquel feels bad for not noticing that Israfil looked even more stressed after they crossed the M25, not less, and it wasn’t just about Crowley and Aziraphale. “How many did we lose because they were too fragile for this sort of thing?”

“Ninety-nine—no.” Israfil tilts his head. “One hundred two. Sometimes you just…too many of these people were already marked by Death. The stress of being moved…the humans are fortunate the number is so low, really.”

“I have a distraction for you, then,” Saraquel says, because that’s all he can really offer. Israfil isn’t the hugging sort when he’s stressed unless the person doing the hugging is Crowley. “Can Crowley hear me?”

“Wait a moment.” Israfil briefly closes his eyes. His fingers spasm once as the feel of his corporation changes. Not quite two souls trying to share the same vessel, but definitely an extra presence. “He is now, though he’s a bit distracted with seeking out the London survivors. What is it?”

“The Shobogan. The Time Lords. Gallifreyans.” Saraquel takes a moment to sort through a bit of knowledge. “Shobogan are Gallifreyans, but not necessarily Time Lords. You have—had—have—urgh, I can’t read that mess as it is now, I’m going with _have_—the Ruling Houses who are allowed to be Time Lords, and you have the rest of the population.”

“All right, so they have an authoritarian government.” Israfil makes his way over to his next sleeping patient’s bed, but Saraquel knows the twins are still listening. “And?”

“Something is off about the entire thing. It’s been a long, long time since I had anything to do with the Kasterborous project. I kept track long enough to know about their developments with interstellar travel, but left off once we realized the new Time Lords weren’t trying to muck up existence, just explore it. But after Aziraphale asked me questions about them yesterday, I haven’t really been able to _stop_ thinking about it.”

“I’m biting.” That’s definitely Crowley speaking, though it doesn’t impede Israfil from doing his job. “Why is this a thing?”

“I helped set the patterns in motion for a—I guess Father would call them one of the human prototypes, but Father is also fond of bipedal sentients, so that pattern repeated itself in a lot of places. Except for the idea of dual hearts to see if it made for a more effective cardiovascular system, we didn’t leave them with the means to turn themselves into what they call Time Lords. They did it to themselves.”

“So what?” Crowley asks. “Definitely wouldn’t be the first time a species has mucked about with their own genetics. Humans on this planet are already trying to figure it out, and they haven’t even finished coming up with the means to properly map individual genetic coding.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Israfil mutters.

Saraquel resists the urge to roll his eyes. “You don’t get it—no. No, that’s not it. You don’t remember. Neither of you do,” he realizes, staring at Israfil.

Israfil straightens and glares at Saraquel. “Remember what?” Both of the twins are asking; it feels like an echo.

“Corporations. Both of you realized soon after the war began in Heaven that corporations are…well, fragile,” Saraquel says when he can’t think of another word. “You were both wondering if corporations could be created that were capable of intensive cellular regeneration to heal severe injuries so there would be fewer angels turning up after unexpectedly dying, needing yet another new corporation.”

Israfil goes still, head slightly turned, thinking while probably also speaking with Crowley. “I have a vague memory of that,” Israfil finally says. “I would need time to sit down, to focus, to make it any clearer.”

“I don’t remember anything about it from up there,” Crowley adds. “I remember thinking about something similar down here, but that was thousands of years ago. The kingdoms of the Mediterranean were warring all the time for stupid reasons, dying like flies. It probably reminded me of our war, because I thought it’d be nice if corporations could just fix themselves without needing us to participate in the process. Or possibly I was just sick of discorporating and having to fill out Dagon’s fucking paperwork. One or the other.”

Israfil snorts. “Definitely the paperwork. I’ve seen Ba‘al’s office. What did the Shobogans start with, then? Was there anything aside from the dual hearts?”

“Oh, uh…” Saraquel has to do more digging, but he wasn’t dead for thousands of years, so he gets better results. “Fairly similar to a standard Earth human. They were stronger to compensate for Gallifrey’s differing gravity. Different tolerance for atmospheric variations, since they were making due on less oxygen than other proto-humans—that was the dual heart reasoning, faster distribution of oxygen. They can see in more than one spectrum of light, but I’m not recalling which ones aside from standard human. Higher tolerance for drought conditions. I think that’s it.”

“They added the respiratory bypass system themselves—which is a good idea, wish I’d thought of it,” Crowley says while Israfil moves on to the next patient. “Then there’s the additional internal organs and brain stems to compensate for how much knowledge the Gallifreyans like to cram into their heads—”

“That’s the other thing that’s bothering me.” Saraquel is far less happy about this. “Only Time Lords have these genetic alterations, which support the ability to become a Time Lord. Just the ruling Houses. Every other Shobogan on that planet is still exactly the same, which is creepy, because they’ve had a long, long time to evolve past the initial design. I can’t even go to Kasterborous and take a look, because the entire planet isn’t where or _when_ it’s supposed to be.”

“Time travelers,” Crowley mutters. “That bit with cellular regeneration, there is a way to pull that off if you tweak almost anyone’s DNA correctly. The difficulty with something like severe injury is the energy it’d take to fix it. Most mortals don’t have that. Israfil and I would have considered it as a solution for us because we _did_ have the power to fuel intense cellular regeneration. But the ability to read Time, and understand it…” He trails off. “No. No, they couldn’t have.”

“Time travelers,” Saraquel points out. “You just said it yourself.”

Crowley turns to face him, Israfil lurking in the background rather than being at the front. “Her _mother_ was already a Time Lord, Saraquel!”

“Time. Travelers.”

Crowley lets his head fall back. “No, no, no. I don’t need this complication in my life. I don’t need to be angry at a large number of idiots; I have plenty of idiots to be angry with on this sodding planet!”

“Would her mother have…maybe…tracked you down for more than one reason?” Israfil asks hesitantly.

Crowley thinks about it for a full minute before shaking his head. “No. Not her. Madonna loved her kid before she had the kid because she met the kid before she was even pregnant with the kid. That Time Lord would have burned out suns if someone mucked about with her kid, no matter when or who they were at the time.”

“Madonna?” Saraquel lets out a snort of laughter. “Really?”

“Don’t think she knew how ironic she was being. It was just a name to her,” Crowley says. “Still funny, though.”

“The Doctor said she was only now coming close to being three thousand years old,” Israfil says. “She needed a nudge, but she figured it out. There have been Time Lords running around since before I died, Saraquel.”

Saraquel shrugs. “Kidnap the only child of the living embodiment of Time itself, take them back in time, steal their DNA, put them back where you found them?”

“No. That requires time travel before they could time travel. That’s a paradox, wouldn’t work without a really big cosmic lever.” Crowley glances off to the east and then groans, putting a hand to his face. “Ow, that didn’t work.”

“Don’t fucking do that!” Israfil complains, covering both eyes with his hands. “That hurt!”

“What hurt?”

Crowley answers Saraquel while Israfil starts healing whatever it is they did to themselves. “That was a brick wall, hard stop, absolute nope. The answer is a fixed point in time. We can’t fuck with it, and we definitely can’t discuss it with her. Them. Any of them. After we see Not-Jane again, yeah, that’ll be a thing, but it can’t be now.”

Saraquel nods, though he hates the mystery of it. That’s going to itch in his head until he finds out the rest of it. He was responsible for that entire constellation of stars once, before they evolved past the point of requiring more direct supervision, and—

And he might’ve mucked up everything if he’d been there when the whatever-this-is took place. Bollocks. “How old is the Doctor? How old are they really?”

“Belief, Saraquel,” Israfil says, apparently recovered from metaphorically slamming into a wall. “If they believe they’re as old as they say, that will overwrite any other impressions. To them, it’s the truth.”

“I’d have to dig for it, and they’d want to know why I was digging, and then we’re dancing a bit too close to that bloody fixed point.” Crowley lets out a growl of frustration. “Gotta go. Alien spiders to fuck with so they pay more attention to me than to Central London. So glad Ba‘al’s hellfire circle dropped when the Black Fire ring cropped up. _Ciao_.”

Israfil stomps his way to the next patient’s bed. Saraquel feels like he needs to give him a peace offering, uncertain if Israfil is angry about a possible kidnapping of his newly discovered nibling (such an awesome word) or about Crowley taunting the Racnoss. “I wouldn’t have brought it up if I didn’t think it was important.”

“I know, Saraquel. Thank you.” Israfil abruptly lifts his head as the ping of _massive sentient consciousness_ gains their attention. Saraquel rubs at his ear; that one was announcing themself, not trying to hide. “I’m assuming that’s the mystery TARDIS who helped with the southern evacuation.”

“It doesn’t feel like the other three ships,” Saraquel agrees. “You think we’ll get to find out who their pilot is, or if we’ll hear more nonsense about spoilers?”

“I’ve no idea, but I’m done here.” Israfil takes off the white jacket and leaves it draped over a bench near the tent’s magnetic-sealing double doors. “Let’s go find out.”

* * * *

Israfil and Saraquel somehow collect Ba‘al and Lucy on their way to the rugby field, which is just to the west side of South Ockendon. The field’s western border is nestled right against the fence the human military rather swiftly wrapped around the burning M25. The grassy area south of the field is already full of medical tents, the hospital overflow of patients who need to be closest to the motorway for swift emergency transport. Or swift morgue transport to make room for new patients, something Israfil has already dealt with far too often today.

The rugby field is empty of all but four items and seven people—for the moment. Israfil knows the hospital overflow is going to increase, along with the need for tents to house them in. He’ll send a message to his collected minions (dammit, Crowley) about that as soon as they’re done greeting the new arrivals. The Doctor is working in the northwest corner, and there is plenty of room in the field’s southern end without intruding.

The three TARDIS ships—who are now gossiping about the new arrival—aren’t lined up in a neat row, as they’d been for a brief time on Saturday morning. They’re set precisely equidistant from each other in a triangle. Something about that is a signal amplifier, but Israfil only knows this thanks to his brother, along with a great deal of eavesdropping. The two versions of his nephew are standing together, staring down the fourth ship in excitement that is badly masked with indifference.

Israfil realizes why almost at once: that is not a blue box. The gossipy ship’s _chameleon_ _circuit_ is broken, which is why all three versions of the Doctor’s ship look similar. A TARDIS with a working circuit means something new to learn, or possibly another Time Lord.

Donna just looks suspicious. Israfil can’t say that he blames her.

Raguel drops into step with them. “Lucy. Ba‘al. Saraquel. Raphael.”

“No, sister. Not that name. Not on this planet, at least,” Israfil reminds her, and Raguel nods.

Israfil has tried, on occasion, to test the use of his true name after discovering that Raphael is rather common in some areas of Earth. It’s never ignored the way it is for others bearing his name; it always, _always_ gains Israfil sudden attention that borders on true recognition. It’s bloody unnerving.

“Three ships are pretending to be blue boxes, and one of them is pretending to be a house,” Saraquel observes.

“That is not a house,” Lucy says in a scathing tone. “That is a _shack._”

“What’s the difference?” Saraquel asks. “It looks fine to me.”

“Aesthetics,” Ba‘al mutters, but they don’t sound quite right. Israfil reaches out and snags their hand, which Ba‘al allows. That’s another warning sign. They’re not fond of what humans are currently calling PDA.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” Israfil asks them.

Ba‘al presses their lips together, thinning that pale pink band of color into a white line. “You saw my wings. After Samael.”

“I did, yes.” Israfil smiles. “I’d forgotten how much I liked that particular shade of grey. It always suited you. Brought out your eyes.”

Their fingers tighten around Israfil’s gentle grip. “I’ve been speaking with my Prince. I’ve been trying to decide if I should retain my title.”

“Oh.” Israfil glances at her, and then the importance of that conversation strikes him. “Oh!”

“That would certainly shake up the status quo again, wouldn’t it?” Raguel says thoughtfully.

“If another angel falls because Ba‘al rejoins Heaven, I’m going to laugh. A lot,” Lucy promises.

“Fuck, I hope not.” Saraquel pulls a face. “Little brother’s return and Sandalphon’s Fall activated Gabriel’s stagnant guilt complex. I don’t know how much more random weeping I can take, Lucy.”

“I do not wish to return to Heaven.” Ba‘al doesn’t seem to notice how shocked Saraquel and Raguel are by their words. Israfil can’t decide how he feels about that at all. “My Prince has granted this decision to me. I’m still uncertain. The task requires…ruthlessness. I’m no longer certain I possess it. I know I can still be cold, and hard, and angry—”

Israfil is _not_ the one who should be handling this sort of mental analysis. _Brother?_

All he gets back is a swamping wave of heavenly wrath that almost stops Israfil in his tracks. That’s a particular flavor of wrath, the one Zaherael reserves for children who have been gravely wronged. There is also a brief flicker that translates as _Very Busy_.

That leaves Israfil on his own. “Sweetheart, what you’re describing isn’t ruthlessness. You’re just describing feelings. Granted, you hit very hard, you hog the blankets, and you absolutely hate _Mary Poppins_.”

Ba‘al frowns. “I liked the penguins. Crowley told me that there are two more films that feature a dancing penguin. We were supposed to view the first one this weekend.”

“Right, we were, weren’t we? Things have been so off-kilter since Thursday that I forgot the film.” Israfil flexes his fingers around Ba‘al’s hand in brief reassurance that _they _were not forgotten. “I shouldn’t say this next part. It feels like I would be influencing your decision, and I don’t want to do that. I…” He has to swallow. “I had too much influence over the last time you had this sort of decision to make.”

“That,” Ba‘al says, their tone sharp, “was not a choice. That was…that was different.” Israfil has to agree that dying is definitely a bit different than a few stupid words. “Tell me. I can’t know if I am making the correct choice if I do not know all of my options.”

“Well, I was going to invite you to move in with me, but my flat is currently in pieces at the bottom of a very large hole in Central London,” Israfil says. “So, I suppose that if you’re willing to tolerate me, we could pick out our next flat together.”

Ba‘al stumbles, the first time Israfil has ever seen them do so. “What?”

“I’m asking you to move in with me,” Israfil says, sighing when Saraquel and Raguel begin arguing over who owes whom which type of wine, and Lucy, shut up, you were not involved in this wager.

“Crowley and Aziraphale have not even managed to accomplish that,” Ba‘al states, flat-toned to mask their confusion.

“Yeah, but they got engaged this morning, so they’ll get there eventually,” Israfil replies.

Lucy chokes and starts coughing. Donna, who was close enough to hear, throws her hands up towards the sky. “Bloody _finally!_” she exclaims. “It only took them how long to stop being stupid?”

“Six thousand years,” Israfil says. “But they have their reasons for that.”

“Intelligent ones,” Ba‘al deigns to add. Considering they attempted to murder his brother last year, twice, Israfil is rather pleased by their support, because some of Aziraphale and Crowley’s reasons are also very, _very_ stupid.

“Oh, hey, the not-actually-a-shack is opening,” Saraquel warns them. Israfil turns his attention away from his older nephew’s amusing face-palming to see what is going to come out of the additional time ship.

Not-Jane trots out first. She stops, points at each of them, and then looks relieved. “No Martha, no Mickey, no Jack. That’s good. It’s all right, you lot!” she calls back over her shoulder. “No one is going to start shooting at us!”

“You could have just checked on the monitors,” Rose says as she saunters out, her floppy hat pulled firmly down on her head to shade her eyes from the sun.

“Yeah, but that makes O cranky, and he’s already cranky.”

Two humans, who Israfil assumes are Yaz and Ryan, come out, escorting a man with dusky brown skin, dark eyes, and black hair. He is dressed like a human, but most certainly isn’t one.

He’s also bound from mouth to fingertips in long strips of bandaging and medical tape.

“Oh—NO!” the Doctor declares, spinning around and yelling up at the sky. “No, no, NO! Not _him!_”

“I’m so glad the others aren’t here right now,” John says, giving the tied-up O an odd look. “Well, glad to see you’re not dead. Wait, should I be glad he’s not dead?” he asks Not-Jane.

Not-Jane gives her younger self a helpless glance and frustrated gesture. “Honestly, I’m still tryin’ to figure that out.”

“I’d be cranky if I was wrapped in an entire hospital’s worth of bandaging, too.” Donna gives O a curious look. “Seems a bit dramatic.”

Not-Jane waves that off. “No, no, no, trust me, this was totally necessary. He had a laser scalpel an’ a hoverin’ Segway, an’ I’ve seen him do so much worse with so much less. And _these two,_” Not-Jane jerks her thumb back at Yaz and Ryan, “weren’t helpin’ anything!”

“Hovering. Segway,” Ryan says.

“And we weren’t the ones with the laser scalpel,” Yaz adds.

“Right, point. Since we’re all out of laser scalpels now…uhm…” Not-Jane glances in Ba‘al, Israfil, Saraquel, Lucy, and Raguel’s direction. “Can one of you lot do the snapping thing and get rid of the bandages? It’s just easier that way, mostly because it’s him.”

“I will. I’ve got to know more about everything that was just stated, because this one sounds like _fun_,” Lucy declares, snapping his fingers.

All of the bandages disappear. O dusts off his clothes and then glares at Ryan and Yaz. “Was the gag of gauze really, truly necessary?”

“Yeah, ’cause you’re a wanker,” Ryan says.

Yaz shrugs. “I’m classing it as stress relief after watching the Doctor chase you down while she was stark naked.”

O smirks. “That part was funny.”

“For you, maybe,” Yaz mumbles. Israfil thinks that one needs to sit down and spend a great deal of time figuring out at least the basics of her sexual preferences.

Not-Jane suddenly spins around to face O. When she speaks, it’s low and fierce. “Rules. Repeat ’em for me.”

“Look, I already promised not to murder anyone today—”

“RULES!”

“Fine!” O crosses his arms. “Whenever the Torchwood lot is here, pretend to be human. Do not push any button that might cause things to explode without permission. I’m not stupid enough to attempt to convince the Racnoss to help me conquer this stupid ball of mud. Do not kidnap anyone or throw them out of aeroplanes, or from any sort of fatal height. Do not poison anyone or alter their DNA without the express permission of that being, and at least one other witness who agrees that it’s a good idea. Do not kill anything unless it attempts to kill me first, excepting the Racnoss, which are in the free-for-all category. Happy now?”

“Good enough,” Not-Jane allows, and turns back around.

“Israfil?” Ba‘al sounds rather distant from him, but they’re still standing at his side. “What is wrong?”

Israfil stares at O. He doesn’t need to ask. He does not need Crowley to prod more thoroughly at the Doctors in an effort to determine what their real age might be.

He can taste it. He can smell it. He can see it beneath O’s skin. He can _feel_ it.

The next thing Israfil knows, Saraquel is yelling at him to calm down, Raguel’s nails are digging into his left arm, Ba‘al and Lucy are holding him back with a desperate grip on his right arm, and O is hiding behind Ryan. Israfil is vaguely aware that his wings are free, raised high in the air, and he’s shrieking in Celestial.

“I WILL KILL THEM! EVERY SINGLE BEING THAT HAD ANYTHING TO FUCKING DO WITH THIS! I WILL END THEIR ENTIRE EXISTENCE AND SPREAD THEIR ATOMS ACROSS THE FUCKING COSMOS—”

O peers out from behind Ryan. “You’re a fucking _Celestial?_” he shouts at Not-Jane.

Not-Jane smirks at him. “I did tell you that trying to get rid of all the humans wouldn’t stop my dad from being born.”

“YOU WERE TRYING TO FUCKING WELL DO _WHAT?_” The shouting is making Israfil’s throat hurt. He has no idea what language that was in, either.

O wisely hides behind Ryan again, who looks annoyed about being used as a shield. “Please tell me who the ginger and angry Celestial with your face is, because I’d prefer to know the identity of the person who is about to cause my next regeneration!”

Rose is suddenly standing next to Saraquel and Raguel. “Raphael,” the Bad Wolf says in a practical-sounding voice. “Your fingers are currently talons.”

Israfil glances down at his hands and tries not to grimace. He can’t remember if he could do that before dying.

“Calm down.” Bad Wolf rests her flat palm on his chest. “You can’t get answers if you kill the people who have them.”

Israfil looks into her eyes, shining with the pure gold of Time that Crowley carries with him everywhere. Slowly, he lowers his wings. The hands of his corporation return to normal. His fangs—shit—shorten until they feel similar to normal human incisors.

He was made not to judge others. He was made to be neutral, to be the balance point between.

Shame has never been his favorite thing to feel.

It’s only when he tucks his wings away, hiding them on the ethereal plane, that Israfil realizes he’s gasping for breath. “Sorry.”

“I’m not fussed,” Rose/Bad Wolf says, stepping back to give him space.

Lucy and Raguel have already let go of his arms. Ba‘al hasn’t. They tilt their head as they peer up at him. “That was—I believe the current term is ‘hot.’”

Israfil feels his cheeks burn. “Ba‘al!”

Yaz holds up one hand. “I kind of thought so, too. Is that sacrilegious?”

“Humans,” Lucy mutters.

“Only the violation of another because of that desire is wrong. Sexual desire itself is not sacrilegious,” Raguel says in a tone that signals how ridiculous she finds the idea. “I still don’t understand why certain humans could decide that adhering to their own biological nature is a sin, but they so easily forgive the violation.”

The youngest version of Israfil’s nephew is standing with his hands on his hips; John has his face buried in his hands, either in embarrassment or regret. “So, I understood the second thing you shouted,” the Doctor says to Israfil. “But I couldn’t make out the first part.”

“I could.” Not-Jane looks curious. “I’m just not sure what he’s talking about, or why O set him off so badly.”

O doesn’t bother to come out from behind Ryan this time. “Raphael. Israfil. Oh. Well, that’s an interesting take on certain stupid religions on this planet. Why does an Abrahamic Celestial suddenly want me dead?”

“You were trying. To kill. My brother,” Israfil grates out. Fucking fixed points in time! He’s only encountered three of them so far, and he is absolutely certain that he despises them.

“Your brother. Right, yes, the twins who can swap bodies. I didn’t have a video link for that very dull meeting this morning. Hmm.” O ponders that while in hiding. “This one is Uncle, and the other one is Dad. That explains so much, and I hate it a lot. What are we doing about the big wall of impassible fire? I’d very much like to return to the fire problem. In fact, I’m going to pretend the screeching Celestial thing never happened, because no, no, and no.”

“Right, yeah. Better get a shift on, then, because the sooner they’re out of London, the happier I’m gonna be,” Not-Jane says.

Israfil clenches his hands into fists. He wants to grab O by his shirt and drag him off for a very long talk as to what killing Crowley has to do with anything, but he can’t. Black Fire is not only their priority. That damned fixed point is yammering in his head, a loud echo of what Crowley can sense.

_Besides_, Israfil thinks as ideas start to be tossed about for getting a time ship through an implausible type of hellfire, _I already know what the answer will be_.

* * * *

By six o’clock on the dot that evening, Aziraphale and Crowley have found everyone there is to be found in London. Aziraphale feels absolutely weary, though the meal that Kierto Toth has waiting for them when they return makes him perk up a bit. The others are already seated as Crowley brings in the last rescue, an infant girl he says is four weeks old. Aziraphale saw enough of the baby’s face to note that she has a tuft of bright ginger hair, infant blue eyes, cheeks that are _not_ plump enough for a healthy infant, and pale bronze skin. Her blankets smell like they were just pulled from a shop’s shelf, and Crowley refuses to relinquish her to anyone else for the entirety of dinner.

“This is excellent,” Aziraphale praises Kierto Toth. Crowley has joked that not even the end of the world would stop Aziraphale from enjoying a meal, and…well, Crowley _was_ recently proven correct.

Their alien rescuee shapeshifter grins. “I’m a chef at a place in Knightsbridge.”

Aziraphale is delighted to hear that. “I knew this flavor profile tasted familiar!” he exclaims, and the two of them end up discussing food during the entire time it takes for the others to eat or drink—or in the case of Mrs. Bell, to sulk. Her step-grandchildren, meanwhile, cram any food that looks interesting into their mouths. Aziraphale despairs of their manners, but at least they’re eating.

The three orphan Grader siblings who Crowley discovered hiding in the cellar of an aging orphanage, missed in the rush to evacuate, are also inhaling their food without much thought given to good table manners, but Aziraphale is far more tolerant in their case. All three are too thin, though the eldest, Michonne, age eight, looks as if she had a run-in with Famine. Her brother, six-year-old Mike, has the flexibility of a gymnast and the wary look of someone who has seen too many raised hands. Five-year-old Elsie is their half-sister and doesn’t speak, even though she isn’t mute. Crowley explained that Elsie also bites, and that he learned this from experience. Elsie is terrified of spiders; it was her idea to hide in the cellar to get away from the Racnoss.

_Just dumped in the orphanage a few weeks ago by an uncle who didn’t want to deal with them any longer,_ Crowley says to Aziraphale when they exchange glances, though Kierto Toth perks up as if he heard the exchange. It’s entirely possible that he did, but Aziraphale trusts an alien immigrant’s discretion. _They weren’t left behind on purpose, though. It’s just that no one was really familiar with their faces yet, and…well, it’s better than what happened to this little one._

Aziraphale glances down at the infant that Crowley has cradled in his left arm. “She is darling. I take it you lifted all of the new baby supplies from a shop?”

“Highest quality shop to nick from, too,” Crowley says, the corner of his lip turning up in a smile. “They can afford it.”

On the other side of the table, Lillian “Lils” Johnson of Torchwood One is engaged in animated conversation with Jasmine Podder, a UNIT volunteer who was rather startled to discover that UNIT has been officially reinstated within the bounds of the UK. She’d been injured by a crowd of panicked humans, bleeding from broken glass, her ankle fractured. Without easy access to transportation, she’d been rummaging through a chemist’s for an ankle brace to keep walking when the warnings went out for the final crossing out of Central London. Corporal Mick O’Riley and Captain Granger chime in on occasion to the things Lils and Jasmine are discussing, but a great deal of the captain’s attention remains focused on Tim and Millie. She makes certain they eat their food—especially when Millie tries to feed part of her pilaf to her stuffed duck.

Young university student Jacky happens to be fluent in BSL, and is involved in a swift and wildly gesticulated conversation with Alena and Andy. Spot-faced Donny of Enfield, who still won’t tell anyone his full name, has made a friend in sulking Mrs. Bell. They seem to have the same…beliefs. Aziraphale hears the terms _MRA_ and _Apocalypse for the wicked_ and _radfem_ and decides he really doesn’t want to hear anything more. That is quite a bit of hatred spoken of in a very brief span of time.

Adrian is sitting with Zachery Stillwater. The thirteen-year-old boy was originally rescued by one of Maghunta’s demonic minions, but the Racnoss kept them from getting to an exit point. Lils, who is quite concerned that Martha Jones-Smith is going to sack her for not making it out of Central London as ordered, found the pair when canvassing the area for other stragglers. Shea joined the fight, but the demon, Malevieth, was discorporated by the Racnoss. Maghunta and her two remaining demons deigned to escort Lils and Zack to the safer area of a well-ventilated bank vault, in which two vending machines for drinks and nibbles suddenly decided to take up residence in the wrong place. It was an unorthodox solution, but Aziraphale noticed that the Racnoss have a bit of a difficulty opening doors.

“Maghunta’s not bad, for a demon,” Crowley had said when Aziraphale related the story to him. “Wouldn’t trust her in other circumstances not to knife me in the back, but that’s just normal demon behavior, not anything personal. Malevieth, though—that’s some creepy altruistic behavior from him, because I’d have said yesterday that he doesn’t know the meaning of the word.”

The Italian tourist they rescued, Nicola Ricci, is twenty-six and speaks only broken English. When the evacuation began, she didn’t understand what was going on. She caught enough from the telly to understand it wasn’t an earthquake or tsunami or the apocalypse (which was averted last August, thank you), and decided to hide in her hotel room. It was not necessarily the best choice, but Aziraphale blames the hotel staff for not making certain the hotel was completely emptied before they declared their evacuation complete. She was grateful to discover that Morgan speaks perfect Italian; Jeffrey knows a great deal of Arabic, a language Nicola has studied, so the three are enjoying each other’s company.

Marge Heimel spends the mealtime trying to coax their catatonic soldier with his Welsh patch to eat or drink something, but unfortunately, the lad doesn’t do either. It was progress just to get him to the table, but he’s still locked up in whatever terrible thing happened to him during the evacuation. Aziraphale saw it so often during World War I, as did Crowley, and they know better than to push too hard.

Allison is sitting with Chase Connors, who is a witty, intelligent, and heartbroken seventeen-year-old blind woman. She was living with her boyfriend, who unfortunately turned out to be the abusive sort. When the evacuation was announced, Eric Chambers locked Chase inside their apartment and left her alone. Chase listened to the telly, learned all she could, and didn’t pound on the door to escape, knowing it might attract the Racnoss. Crowley is all but itching to miracle her blindness cured, but is biting back the urge, saying it should be her decision. Aziraphale is the one resisting the urge to “bless” Chase’s former boyfriend.

After dinner is over—Donny is at least keeping Mrs. Bell from _shrieking_ all the time—Allison slowly convinces Crowley to pass over the infant so she can have a turn. Her son, Adrian, is absolutely fascinated by the baby, ready and waiting to grab whatever baby supplies his mother might need next. While Allison feeds the baby with a bottle full of canned formula, she asks, “Does she have a name?”

“There was nothing around her to indicate she had one,” Crowley says in a terse voice. “Her old clothes didn’t have tags. No name written on the fabric. She had diaper rash from not being changed for a while. Healed it,” he adds, when Allison remarks that she hadn’t seen a hint of a rash.

“Abandoned,” Allison says. Crowley sniffs once and gives her a stiff nod. “Well, she needs a name then, doesn’t she?”

“Ashley!” Adrian supplies at once.

“That doesn’t really fit,” Allison says after a moment.

Michonne stops chewing on the edge of her thumbnail for a moment. “Khaleesi.”

“Everyone and their sister is named that lately,” Jeffrey says. “Maybe something just a bit different, but not fiction?”

Chase turns her head in their direction, smirking. “Loki.”

“It’s like you _want_ to curse her,” Crowley retorts. “No. Bad idea.”

Lils gives the baby a doubtful look. “Daphne?”

“Nope.”

Jasmine rolls her eyes at Crowley’s immediate dismissal. “Nadab.”

Aziraphale smiles. “Oh, I do like that one.”

“Mm. It’s not quite right,” Crowley mutters.

“Izanami,” Jacky suggests, grinning. “She’s a Japanese creator goddess.”

“She also dies in childbirth. Still a curse,” Crowley says. “Names are important. You have to take all of their meaning into account, not just the cool bits. Nadab, for example. Great name, but the first Nadab went up in a great pillar of flame for doing _something_ to piss off God, or at least that’s the story that went around. No matter what happened, the bloke was still very, very dead.”

“Nadab was also the second king of Israel,” Aziraphale says. Crowley shrugs, part of his face drawn up in disapproval.

“Celeste,” Nicola hesitantly suggests. “It is popular in my home.”

“From Caelestis. Of the sky.” Aziraphale gives Crowley a thoughtful look. “What do you think, dear? Given that you’re so intent on having the final say.”

“I found her; yes, I do get final say on if she gets stuck with a rubbish name. Besides, first thing I thought of was the _Mary Celeste,_ so no.”

“Uriah,” Morgan tosses in.

“We know Uriah. Nope,” Crowley says. Aziraphale shakes his head to agree with Crowley. Uriah isn’t a bad angel, but they’re…not very imaginative.

Crowley suddenly sits forward. “Phoenix. Because she’s going to rise from the ashes of where she came from, and she’ll be amazing while she’s at it.”

“Don’t hear about a lot of kids named Phoenix,” Andy signs in approval.

“I like it,” says their comatose Welsh soldier, and almost everyone in their corner of the restaurant lets out a startled noise. “It’s a good name.”

“Welcome back, mate,” Jeffrey says. “You sticking about with us?”

The Welsh soldier blinks a few times. “Probably. I don’t know if I could fire a gun right now, but…but I think I’m okay. Long as there are no spiders in here.”

“None,” Aziraphale promises, and miracles every single tiny spider on the top five floors of the building into another building entirely. He might accidentally start a spider territory war, but this young man needs no reminders of the thing that frightened him so badly.

“Phoenix is a cool name,” Mike Grader says in a very grave little voice.

“Speaking of names.” Padma sits down next to the Welshman. “We’d all love to know yours.”

“Oh. I’m…I’m Pugh. Sergeant Haul Pugh. Standing Silo Company from 3rd Battalion.” Sergeant Pugh swallows. “I was sergeant for my platoon.”

“What happened?” Padma asks in a quiet voice. “You don’t have to say, but we’ve all been worried.”

“Most of us, anyway,” Corporal O’Riley says, glancing over his shoulder to see where Mrs. Bell, her slightly rabid step-grandchildren, and Donny the Extremely Irritating have gathered together to spew more hateful nonsense.

“Oh. I…there was a breech at one of the southern stations. I don’t remember which one.” Sergeant Pugh has a look of vague distress on his face. “Does anyone—I had two sections with me. Does anyone know what happened to them?”

“We came out with only forty-five deaths, and that’s for _everyone_ who was participating in the evac. They were scattered around, too, not all in one place. Chances are you’ve still got men alive on the other side of the quarantine fire,” Crowley says.

That puts a bit more animation on the sergeant’s face. “We’re still—we’re still in London?”

“Yep,” Crowley responds, drawing out the word to pop the _p_ at the end. “But we’re all safe for the moment. You’re sitting in the room of a _very_ tall hotel with the rest of London’s accidental leavings. Aziraphale and I stayed behind to make sure you lot have a chance at getting the hell out of here. Why bloody Standing Silo Company?” Crowley suddenly asks.

“The company used to stand guard for the nuclear silos before the mass disarmament treaties,” Sergeant Pugh replies, a not-quite-smile on his face. “The name sort of stuck.”

Crowley is the one to, quite sensibly, declare that everyone has been awake for far too long. Aziraphale mentions that the upstairs is already prepared with a multitude of waiting beds. Most of them are spaced away from each other for a bit of privacy, but he kept the children in mind, too. There is surprisingly little protest, though the soldiers, including Sergeant Pugh, gather around Crowley and Aziraphale after the others have all gone upstairs.

“We should set a watch,” Captain Granger says. “I’m not in the mood to have a kip and wake up with a spider centaur standing there ready to eat my face. There are five of us and two of you Celestial types, so it won’t be that hard for anyone to take on a watch.”

Crowley nods. “Yeah, we should keep watch, but it’s not gonna be any of you tonight. I’ll be awake, no difficulties. You five need to recharge if you’re going to be any good to us. The Racnoss won’t ignore us for long.”

“You sound like you know they’re coming,” Jasmine says, shivering. “I was hoping for a day or two, honestly.”

“Not sure yet.” Crowley points upwards. “On the top of this hotel isn’t your standard roof, but a terrace. If you can keep your mouth shut, it’s the perfect place to keep an eye on things, because the Racnoss certainly won’t be coming up from beneath us. When the Racnoss come, it’s the terrace they’re going to target as the easy access point.”

“How can they get up here, though—the webs,” Corporal O’Riley blurts out. “I’d forgotten about that. I saw them stretching webs between buildings.”

“The bloody cheats,” Lils says in a tone of utter pragmatism. “Can we burn the webs they try to build before they get up here?”

“Possibly,” Aziraphale replies, thinking about his flaming sword. It would do the job, but that is much closer to the Racnoss than he’d prefer to be. “It’s a good idea, regardless.”

Crowley nods. “We might have to.” Aziraphale doesn’t find that to be reassuring. “Listen. There was a logistics meeting in Slough earlier today. I know what was said and discussed because of my brother. The Racnoss have Hunters with them, yeah, but the Hunters can’t breed. They’re sterile males. No one saw any Racnoss take to the air, either. Those are the breeding males, and the Racnoss don’t seem to have any. They also don’t have an Empress. Yet.”

Captain Granger grimaces. “Oh, hell. What does that mean for their behavior?”

“The Racnoss are going to explore the whole of their territory. London’s a big place, but that still won’t take long.” Crowley crosses his arms. “Then the stronger females, the larger females—they’ll start fighting. Last one standing will become their Empress. They can reproduce asexually, but it takes time. Years. The Racnoss don’t have that kind of time, not even if they had the entire population of London still here to snack on. Once they realize how fucked they are, the Racnoss will become more aggressive.”

“They’re already trying to kill us all. Bloody hell, how much more aggressive can they be?” Corporal O’Riley asks in disbelief.

“We won’t be able to predict their behavior,” Captain Granger says, looking properly grim.

“It won’t just be about eating everything in London anymore. They’ll know they have a time limit.” Sergeant Pugh is very pale, but he thrusts his chin out in stern, shaky resolve. “Can you give us a timeframe, sir?”

“I hate being in charge,” Crowley says under his breath. “Tomorrow. That’s why I want you lot rested up, because things will probably go to shit before noon. Once they do, Aziraphale is your commanding officer, because he’s the one who’s actually the soldier, not me.”

“Dear!” Aziraphale blurts in protest. “I—well, that may be true, but…I’d rather be a bookshop owner.”

“And I’d rather the Racnoss were actually extinct,” Crowley replies, glancing at Aziraphale. _This is the sort of thing you know how to plan for better than I do. I’m better at chaos than plans, angel._

That is irritatingly true. _What will you be doing?_

_Burning down webs as the Racnoss try to build them. Don’t need a flaming sword for that._

“Civilian evac plan?” Lils asks, interrupting Aziraphale’s attempt to ask what Crowley planned to use instead.

“Aziraphale and I will teleport everyone to the next tallest building in London, and hope to hell it’s not already full of Racnoss,” Crowley says bluntly. “That’s literally the only way out of here unless you jump off the roof.”

Lils doesn’t look impressed. “Let’s not be jumping off the roof, yeah?”

“Amen to that,” Pugh mutters. “After the civilians are secured?”

“You get to teleport, too, because we’re the idiots who’ll be distracting the Racnoss,” Crowley says.

“Yes, quite,” Aziraphale agrees. He’d like to argue the _idiots_ part, but they did do a rather good job of proving their incompetence in world-ending situations. Best not to borrow trouble.

Padma smiles. “All right, then. Sleeping with my rifle tonight, sirs. Good night.” She leads the soldiers’ walk up the stairs, though Pugh takes the steps on slightly unsteady legs.

“I’m so proud of them,” Aziraphale says. Then he thinks on it and says, “All of them.” No matter what happens, these humans have all done their best.

Well. Perhaps not Nanny Bigot, but she still has time to learn better. Aziraphale just has to help make certain she and that young ninny named Donny live long enough to do so.

“Yeah. Me, too.” Crowley takes Aziraphale’s hand and miracles them both up to the terraced rooftop. The evening breeze is warmer than Aziraphale is accustomed to for London in May, but not unpleasant. “You’re tired, angel.”

“I’m perfectly capable of continuing to do my job without slothing about in a bed for several hours,” Aziraphale retorts.

Crowley stares at him, a hint of the Healer in his gaze. “You know what Israfil would say to that.”

Aziraphale tries several times to come up with a rebuttal before he sighs. “Sleep still doesn’t come easily to me, my dear.”

“Yeah, I know. Don’t think you’ll have much of a problem with it tonight, though.” Crowley smiles and lifts his hand, his thumb stroking Aziraphale’s cheek. Then he leans in and offers Aziraphale a soft kiss, which Aziraphale accepts. Crowley still tastes like stardust from his moon-building stunt yesterday, but Aziraphale doesn’t mind at all.

“What about you? You love sleeping, Crowley.”

Crowley snorts. “Angel, I’d love to enjoy a bit of _slothing about_, but right now I’m bloody wide awake. I’m also mourning the motorbike. That poor Ducati did not deserve to die that way.”

Aziraphale smiles and captures Crowley’s other hand with both of his own. “You also asked me a rather important question this morning. I’ve had a bit of breathing room here and there, and each time, I’ve spent it thinking on what sort of ring I should be getting for you.”

“Uh—” Crowley’s eyes widen. “I hadn’t actually thought about that part.”

“Hmm. Tartan is stylish,” Aziraphale teases.

“No, it really isn’t!” Crowley scowls. “Angel. If you gave me a tartan ring, I’d wear the thing, but please, I’m begging you: do not give me a fucking tartan ring.”

Aziraphale laughs and squeezes Crowley’s hand. “I make no promises. They do amazing things with metal and gemstones these days.” He turns to go back downstairs, and then hesitates. “Crowley, I—this will sound absolutely silly, but the only times I’ve ever slept easily and well, it’s because I’ve been next to you.”

“Huh.” Crowley considers that for a moment before snapping his fingers. He doesn’t summon one of the sofa beds, but one of the wide and decadent beds from the hotel suites. “Multi-tasking is a thing.”

“It is indeed,” Aziraphale responds, his heart filled with so much joy at Crowley’s thoughtfulness that it feels like it could burst. He takes off his coat and pulls back heavy cotton sheets. It’s not anything like Crowley’s sand-washed silk sheets, but it’s still quite lovely.

“Keep your shoes on, angel. Just in case.” Crowley sits on the bed next to him, leaning against the padded headboard while stretching out his legs. Aziraphale hesitates only a moment before he disdains the hotel pillow and chooses to lay his head in Crowley’s lap, instead. Crowley makes a surprised noise before his hand finds its way to Aziraphale’s hair.

Aziraphale considers the city stretched out before them, still lit by the electricity that wasn’t turned off. There are clouds for the light to reflect off of, turning the sky orange and amber.

He’s lived in London for so long now. He can’t imagine leaving it behind.

Crowley’s fingertips gently brush his face. “I’m so sorry about the bookshop, angel.”

Aziraphale feels a squirming hint of the old shame when he realizes he’s been caught weeping. “It’s only a shop.”

“No. No, it wasn’t. Not to either of us.” Crowley draws in a deep breath and lets it out as a long sigh. Aziraphale can feel Crowley’s grief, almost as deep and cavernous as his own. They’d laughed, bargained, argued, drank, ate, and plotted to stop Armageddon in that old shop. They’d lived there and loved each other from across dividing lines, neither of them saying a word even when Aziraphale felt sudden, unexpected surges of love from Crowley before the demon managed to get the emotion pinned back down under his control.

The first time Aziraphale had felt Crowley’s love, he’d been so startled that he sobered up on accident.

Aziraphale doesn’t want to ask, but he’ll never be able to sleep if he doesn’t speak of it. “Crowley. Are we going to die tomorrow?”

Crowley’s hand pauses, and then resumes the soothing carding of fingers through Aziraphale’s hair. “You said yes. I gave you a ring, and you said you’d marry me. If I die tomorrow, angel, I’ll die happy.”

Aziraphale’s eyes begin filling with tears again. He blinks them away. “I would, too, but let’s please avoid that fate. I’d like to have a very nice wedding.”

“You always did like weddings.” Crowley sounds fond, amused, and…well. Soft. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, my dear.” Only then does Aziraphale close his eyes.

Because he is an angel, he dreams about what he likes best. He dreams about Crowley.


	37. Heart of a Star

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s a happening, present tense: Crowley is fucking terrified.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know what to put here except Monday is Coming, and right now I'm giggling too much over the stupid joke to be all somber about it.
> 
> (C'mon, check my tags! I'm not that cruel.)

Crowley is glad when Aziraphale falls asleep, because it means he doesn’t have to keep as tight a hold on his feelings or his expressions. He just has to watch his mental volume, or Aziraphale will wake up and demand to know what happened, what went wrong.

It’s like the old joke: _I went wrong, angel. That was sort of the point._ Aziraphale always pretended he didn’t think it was funny.

It’s not a happened, anyway. It’s a happening, present tense: Crowley is fucking terrified. He wasn’t lying when he said that to Donna in the TARDIS on Saturday morning. He just put the feeling away, boxed it up, a bit too busy with not-dying, saving a _lot_ of people, and trying to remember how to work with humans when he doesn’t have the option of just making them forget when they see something odd. It was a good day for that, at least; aliens in the air, the Doctor, UNIT, and Torchwood sort of helped gloss over most of the whole Celestial bit.

Aziraphale had his first few skirmishes with Racnoss on Saturday (which hadn’t helped Crowley’s nerves at all), but that’s all they were. Just skirmishes. His angel has never seen endless waves of Racnoss bearing down on him, everything in their path eaten or trampled beneath their needle-tip legs or slashed away by razor arms. Aziraphale has never had to hold his ground with maybe one or two allies at his back, knowing they’re the only ones who can save this new part of Creation, that they can’t let an infestation of evil spiders eat it.

Crowley still had nightmares about the Racnoss when he was a new demon and no longer remembered what Racnoss were. He would dream about tall bodies, flashes of red and black, remembered terror, pained shrieking, and think he’d been dreaming about the War. Eventually, he lost enough memory from Before that the nightmares left him alone, but he was never comfortable around Earth’s larger spiders, especially if they were black. Especially if they were black with red marks anywhere. So glad that the Black Widow spider is in the US, and that he never met one. He probably would have burnt the poor thing out of existence with hellfire before rational thought put in its next appearance. The Redback spider, however…yeah, the less he thinks about that, the better.

Tomorrow is part of Mum’s hint about that _smidge_ of what’s to come. He just doesn’t know how bad it’s going to be.

A noise distracts him from thoughts that are circling a clogged drain. Crowley fishes the abandoned earpiece out of his pocket and stares. It’s the thing making the noise.

Crowley tucks the earpiece back into place, adjusting volume and mic sensitivity with a thought so he can speak without waking Aziraphale. “Tell me I didn’t imagine that.”

“_No, you’re totally imaginin’ things. Whole weekend._”

Crowley doesn’t try to stop the wide smile that is suddenly occupying his face. “Hello, Not-Jane. Is this a group chat, or just you?” She’d disappeared off his mental radar for about an hour in the afternoon, but by the time he had a chance to worry, she was already back.

“_Group!_” Donna puts in at once. “_Thanks for still being alive, Sunshine. Pretty sure it’s the only thing keeping Israfil calm right now._”

“_Thank you so very much for your faith in my mental stability,_” Israfil drawls.

“_Says the man who nearly turned O here into shreds this afternoon_,” Rose counters. Crowley raises an eyebrow. Stirring Israfil’s temper is easy. Pissing off Israfil to that point requires a lot of effort. He really wants to meet this O bloke now.

“_Behave yourselves,_” Michael snaps. Oh, he’s in a mood. Fabulous. “_Little brother, are you and Principality Aziraphale well?_”

“Not a scratch on me. Aziraphale is zonked out in my lap—not that way!” Crowley sighs and rolls his eyes when Brothel Boy can’t resist the commentary. “The twenty-four Londoners who didn’t make it out during the evac are sleeping downstairs, or maybe pretending to sleep. Honestly, I don’t care what they get up to as long as they’re not trying to attract the Racnoss or set this place on fire.”

“_Twenty-four isn’t twenty-six,_” his youngest kid says. Doctor. Right, yeah. He hasn’t had to think of them that way for most of today. Crowley recites the reminder in his head: Not-Jane, John, Doctor.

“Yeah, well. One of them died before we could get to them. Racnoss. The other absolutely refused to evacuate. If I can’t convince that man’s arse to move, he isn’t going to be convinced. Point to him, though; he’s not dead yet.” Crowley then rattles off the name and age of everyone in the hotel. “Besides, it’s twenty-six again as long as you remember to count the two of us. I want to be counted among the things you’re rescuing, by the way. I like being alive.”

“_I’m gonna strangle Lils. I was wondering where she was in this mess, not answering her comm,_” Martha grumbles. Crowley decides to tell Lils later that at least strangling isn’t sacking.

“_Who off and names a baby Phoenix, anyway?_”

“I did, I found her, shut up, Ryan.” Crowley hears sputtering before it goes muffled, like someone clamped their hand down over Ryan’s mic. Probably Yaz; she’d sounded like a sensible kid. Yesterday. Today. Both? Both.

“_Found her where?_” John asks.

Crowley grinds his teeth for a moment. “Don’t…don’t ask me that question. How are you lot getting a signal through the giant purple wall made of fire, anyway?”

“_I told you, I speak_ all_ the maths._”

“Oh. It’s you again,” Crowley says. Not-Jane makes a choked-laugh sound that she tries to stifle, but doesn’t quite get there.

“_You did that on purpose,_” O replies like a sulking teenager.

“I do everything on purpose. Doesn’t necessarily work out all that well, but still, on purpose.” Crowley pauses. “Maths shouldn’t have been enough.”

Lucy sounds like he wants to punch someone. “_They’re all driving me insane, Crowley. This. Is. Your. Fault. I’m also going to be pulling the records on the bargain that caused this insanity!_”

“Good luck with that; it wasn’t a bargain. Balanced trade.” Lucy growls. “I did just save you some time. You should be thanking me. I could’ve let you dig through Dagon’s archives, looking for something that didn’t exist, while Dagon screamed bloody murder the entire time about you fucking up their system.”

“_The entire lot of you are weird,_” Yaz says flatly. Huh. The shine must’ve worn off on meeting real angels, probably due to the discovery that real angels are pricks.

“Look, as entertaining as this is—and it really is, today was a steaming pile of shit—I need to know something. If you’re getting a signal through Black Fire, can you get one of the gossipy boxes through?”

“_Not yet,_” Not-Jane answers in clear regret. “_Why? What’s going on? We know you lot don’t have long-term lollygagging rights, but we figured we had at least another day.”_

“Yeaaaahhhh.” Crowley looks down at Aziraphale, who is starting to frown in his sleep. He dials back down the feelings-meter, brushing his hand through Aziraphale’s hair until the frown eases. “If you’re not here tomorrow by noon, there might not be anything to rescue.”

“_Well…bugger,_” Not-Jane says.

“_That is not nearly emphatic enough,_” Gabriel complains.

“You said on Friday night that six hours was plenty of time to save the planet,” Crowley points out.

“_Yeah, sure it is,_” the Doctor says. “_I think it’s more like not wanting to deal with yet another bloody timer._”

“_We were already dealing with a timer._” That’s Rose—no, Bad Wolf. Maybe. Hard to tell with Black Fire in the way. “_It just…got shorter, is all._” That part, though, was definitely Rose.

“_Crowley._”

“Still here, Michael.”

“_Are you certain as to that frame of time?_”

Michael sounds worried. Fuck. Crowley glances up at the cloudy sky. He doesn’t want anyone to be worried. He wants some bloody confidence.

“I can hear them,” Crowley finally says. “They’re already fighting over which Racnoss is going to be their new Empress and chief of egg-laying. You know what happens once the distractions are out of the way.”

“_What? What happens?_” John asks. “_Aside from the egg-laying._”

Saraquel joins in, and he sounds worried, too. Fucking great. “_These are infant Racnoss. It will be several years before their new Empress can lay eggs._”

“_Oh. Well, then. Bollocks,_” John says.

“_You’re trapped in a city with hundreds of thousands of hungry and angry alien spiders who are about to realize they don’t have enough food to last a month, let alone three years. Good job, Brother._”

Crowley scowls. “Israfil, that isn’t helping. None of this is helping. Are any of you even the slightest bit fucking confident that we’re _not_ all going to die tomorrow?”

“_I am_.” Donna sounds certain. Absolute certainty. Crowley is going to buy her the best offensively sculpted wind turbine of _all time_ to put in front of her house.

“_So’m I. I didn’t meet you just to let you get eaten by Racnoss,_” Not-Jane adds.

“_There are _three _Doctors on board with this—and that hasn’t stopped being weird_,” Ryan says. “_I’m with Donna. The lot of you will be safe as bloody houses before the spiders turn up._” Crowley decides he can forgive Ryan for mocking the baby’s name.

“_Crowley._” Ba‘al sounds the same as ever. “_It’s. You._”

Crowley lifts up a bit from where he’d been starting to slump. “_Yeah?_”

“_Do I need to list all of the ways in which you’ve been an annoyingly unkillable irritant?_” Ba‘al snaps. “_Dagon is on Earth. I could ring them. Then I could tell you of each incident. In explicit detail._”

“That’s really okay. Not necessary at all. Nrnng.” Crowley really doesn’t want Lucy to have any more of a reason to want to troll through his files. “Right. We’re not dying, you lot will arrive in time to save our arses, and then I want all of the alcohol. I’m so done with this entire fucking weekend. I’m celebrating the moment it’s over with.” A weekend shouldn’t last six months, twenty-four days, five hours, and however many hours it’ll take on Monday to get the hell out of London.

“_Amen to that,_” Brothel Boy says. That’s also a lot more forgivable than so many jokes about heads and laps.

“Yeah.” Crowley glances up at the sky again, but this time it’s for a different reason entirely. “I hope She heard that.”

The others sign off after that, though his kid asks Crowley a few questions about Black Fire that he doesn’t know how to answer. He never made it, only saw it made. They already know that he aligned Odegra perfectly to feed Black Fire’s destruction, and that wasn’t even his intent in the first place. He’d just wanted to fuck with other motorists.

The wind picks up, swift and harsh as it rushes over the rooftop terrace. Crowley gives the weather a bit of a nudge and gentles the wind flowing over the borrowed hotel bed until it’s a balmy warm breeze. Better.

Crowley mutes the mic on the earpiece and sits back, prepared to spend the entire night in silence. Mostly in silence, anyway. The sounds of the Racnoss never ceases, shrieking angry cries and the scrape of razorblade arms, the constant _tap-tap-tap_ sound of their many legs clicking along the roads and walkways of London.

Instead of continued silence, he gets a winged visitor. “Maghunta. Fancy seeing you in Canary Wharf.” Crowley holds up one finger to his lips, requesting a quiet conversation as he gestures at Aziraphale. He’s glad that once his angel finally falls asleep, Aziraphale is stubborn about staying that way for a few hours.

Maghunta nods in brief acknowledgement, brushing off her clothing. Her favorite spiders rustle around in her windblown white hair; her coal black wings are decorated with fresh cobwebs. Maghunta’s skin is corpse-colored but not rotting. She always held herself together pretty well, all things considered. “I could sense that you and the Principality were still in London, but your location kept changing. I waited until you remained in a single place to be certain I would arrive to find safety, not Racnoss.” She pauses. “We were busy hunting them, so it was no hardship to wait. Ehru and Niuthe are still seeking the last of the Hunters, as they remain the most dangerous aside from the Empress that will soon rise.”

“Huh.” Crowley didn’t think Niuthe would last that long; they don’t have wings. Ehru, however, is literally a born hunter. She spent her human life doing nothing more than hunting down humans to kill them for sport. When Hell claimed her soul, she saw a job opportunity and took it. “I’m glad they’re still around. You, too, by the way.”

Maghunta inclines her head briefly. “Thank you, Lord Crowley.”

“Look, I know that Lucy gave me that title to maintain the neutrality between Above and Below in regards to this planet, but it sounds stupid and you _really_ don’t need to use it,” Crowley says. “Well, unless you have to.” He knows all about covering his own arse for survival in Hell.

“Crowley, then.” Maghunta shifts on her feet, which are claw-tipped and look more like a lizard’s right now. “There is another presence from Hell within the city who is not myself, Ehru, or Niuthe.”

Crowley feels his stomach sour at the thought. “Typhaon?”

Maghunta shakes her head. “Typhaon was properly discorporated. He probably did not appreciate his welcome when he returned to Hell. No. This is someone else. They are familiar to me, but I cannot identify them. They are very good at hiding.”

“Anything you did notice?”

“They are female,” Maghunta says at once. “Or have chosen to present themselves that way. They smell foul. I do realize that does not narrow down the very long list of possibilities.”

“Shit.” It really doesn’t.

“I said far worse upon discovering their presence,” Maghunta comments dryly. “Especially when Niuthe discovered another _angelic_ presence.”

“What the fuck? The only angels on this planet right now should be Aziraphale and the First Seven. Well, minus Uriel at the moment, nasty bit of discorporation,” Crowley says. That sour feeling is getting worse. This isn’t a coincidence. All the demons who arrived with Samael were eaten by the Racnoss, so that’s not when they arrived. Without mobile phones, they couldn’t have gotten up here on their own with that dimensional block in the way—

“Shit. Eric,” Crowley breathes.

“The Disposable. The one who was Discorporated in ridiculously swift fashion?” Maghunta asks in distaste.

“Yeah, him.” Crowley uses his free hand to rub his eyes, doing his best to keep his emotions to himself.

_Samael _is_ a prince of Hell. How’m I supposed to know it’s disobeying orders to off an’ do what one of the big bosses wants?_

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, and more fuck.” Crowley meets Maghunta’s pale-eyed gaze. “We assumed Samael sent the Disposable before the time-loop started and the dimensional barrier went up, but we all forgot: Samael wasn’t in Hell. Samael hasn’t been in Hell for thousands of years. Tenebris—she’s gone back to Zaazenach, by the way—preferred a better quality of minion, which was always herself. That Disposable idiot had a mobile in his jacket.”

Maghunta frowns. “You believe that this Disposable was ordered to grant the unknown demon swift access to London on Saturday, and did so before he was caught. This demon used Samael’s name to ensure compliance.”

“Yeah. Or the Disposable little shit lied about it. The Racnoss might have a demonic backup plan, or the demon has their own agenda—oh, who the fuck am I kidding? They’re a demon. Of course they have their own agenda.” Crowley scowls. “Hold on a minute. No stabbing.”

“My Prince would kill me if I harmed a Healer.” Maghunta crosses her arms. “Please be swift. I wish to return to slaying the Racnoss.”

Crowley doesn’t need to close his eyes, but he does sort of lose track of everything around him when he checks his Celestial radar. He could do this from the start and never once realized what it meant, but it was a great way to keep track of Aziraphale. “Oh, there they are. I can’t get much closer than just knowing they’re in Central London. You’re right. Good at hiding, those two. Oh, that’s interesting. The same sort of magic is keeping both the demon and the angel from being noticed by the Racnoss.”

“An angel is working with a demon,” Maghunta says in disbelief.

“Really not the first time for that,” Crowley reminds her, annoyed. “The angel, though. What the hell is up with that?” He activates the mic on the earpiece again. “Gabriel. Michael. Is there anyone from Upstairs who’s supposed to be on this planet right now aside from us?”

“_I’m unaware of any recent Earth assignments,_” Michael responds.

“_Two of the First Seven were on Earth, along with a Principality. It would have been a waste of resources,_” Gabriel says. “_Especially after Israfil and Crowley stopped that unscheduled plague._”

“_I’ve been wondering why this planet wasn’t suffering a global pandemic, as scheduled,_” O mutters.

“It wasn’t a fixed point,” Crowley retorts.

“_And I wasn’t going to sit back and watch that happen, either,_” Israfil growls.

“_That pandemic was supposed to help humans remember that they’re one people,_” the Doctor says. “_Terrible event, but ultimately it did some good and brought them together again._”

“What do you think a massive evacuation of one of the world’s most important cities, accompanied by a globally documented and broadcast invasion of alien spiders, is going to do? Nothing?” Crowley smirks at Not-Jane’s thoughtful hum, though John just sighs. “Look, I’m asking because not only is there a spare demon in Central London who isn’t supposed to be here, we’ve got a spare angelic presence, too. They’re both going to a lot of trouble to keep anyone from figuring out who they are.”

“_I’ll call Uriel,_” Michael offers. “_We’ll find out if anyone is missing, Crowley._”

“Thanks.” Crowley ends that conversation and gestures for Maghunta to wait. He can’t miracle one of the spare earpieces here from Sheffield, not with Black Fire in the way—probably—but he has a simpler solution. He retrieves Aziraphale’s earpiece from his coat and tosses it to Maghunta. “That way you can listen in on what’s happening.”

Maghunta nods, doesn’t say thank you, and takes off in a cloud of musty, molting feathers. She leaves a few spiders behind, too. Crowley huffs and relocates the spiders to the lowest floor of the hotel.

Crowley snaps his fingers and miracles up two earpieces compatible with his and Aziraphale’s mobiles, snagged from a nearby kiosk. Their mobiles still work in London because Crowley _wants_ them to work, leaving them with the only functioning mobile phones in the entire quarantine zone. A bit of intent and fiddling means that Aziraphale’s new mobile earpiece can also pick up on the signal from the Torchwood earpieces. Crowley can’t make the Bluetooth earpieces talk to the Torchwood signal (definitely alien tech mixed in with that, and it’s stubborn) but Aziraphale will be able to hear everything the others are saying. All Crowley has to do is ring Aziraphale’s mobile, and whatever Aziraphale says to Crowley will feed right into his Torchwood earpiece because of proximity.

With that done, Crowley leans back against the borrowed bed’s cushioned headboard again, staring out at the city skyline. The last time Heaven and Hell worked together, Racnoss aside, it was both sides pissed off about a lack of Armageddon. He can’t see an angel willingly backing Samael, which leaves…a _lot_ of possibilities as to why they’d be down here with a demon. Crowley made a number of people really fucking angry for thousands of years. That sort of history doesn’t just evaporate because he switched teams again.

East EEC

South Ockendon

If the Doctor had at any point believed that this weekend couldn’t get any more strange (and awkward) he was so very wrong. He hasn’t really had time to dwell on Mickey and Martha, both so much older than when he last saw them, a mere hour ago. He has a flash memory from his older self, viewing pictures of their two children, and, stars, but they’re happy, and he’s so glad. Jack is still…very much Jack, but at the same time, he seems more comfortable in his own nearly-immortal skin. Still psychically reaching out to anyone who might be capable of nudging back, still flirting to cover that terrifying emptiness the Doctor is all too familiar with in this era of humanity, but _settled_.

He had no idea what the Bad Wolf thing would mean when it first happened, but Rose being everywhere, every_when_, just because she promised she would never leave him—it hurts his hearts, but it doesn’t, because it’s a promise kept. He doesn’t really have much experience with those, even when he tries, so he loves her even more for it, but he’s also proud of her for figuring out how to reach back when he didn’t know what could ever fix what’d gone wrong.

Donna keeps looking at the Doctor like he’s an idiot, which, yeah, that’s normal. Like Rose, she’s never stood in awe of what or who he is, just traveled with delight or frustration or utter exasperation, along with the occasional stern kick in the pants when he most needed it. Martha hadn’t been in awe of him so much as she’d been confused by him; Jack had once just wanted to know _How the fuck?_ because of the Time War, but otherwise he’d just been grateful that there was someone else out there who could look at him, see, and understand.

Ryan and Yaz make the Doctor smile, because they’re exactly the sort of people he needs, and his elder self (Jane, not Not-Jane, because that really is a bit much) recognized that at once. They’re pragmatic and naïve, hopeful and cynical, and they won’t take no for an answer unless they hear a good reason for it. Ryan’s grandfather, Graham, is in Sheffield with Wilf. The former was content to say hi, possibly dealing with about all he can take when there are three of himself about; Wilf wants to _see him_, which makes the Doctor grit his teeth. He’d planned for that wedding to be the last time, but it looks like the universe has torture in mind, after all.

Who is he kidding? The Doctor knew it was going to be torture the moment he picked up the phone and heard himself on the other end.

The Celestials are…very Celestial.

Rose lifts her head and gives him a _look_. “What happened to your vocabulary?”

“Did I say that out loud?”

“No, just loudly,” Rose replies, a glint of gold in her eyes as she smirks at him. “Best watch that, Doctor. They’re all more than a bit psychic.”

“I thought it was funny,” the one named Saraquel says, untangling the various cords that the Doctor’s younger self dumped in his lap with a patience that _no_ incarnation of himself has ever possessed.

“I’m not Celestial, I’m occult,” Lucy mutters. S/he’s not settled on a gender at the moment, possibly just to make the humans twitchy. If so, they’re aiming in the wrong direction. This batch of humans has seen much weirder.

Well, they’re Lucifer. Maybe not weirder, but definitely on a level.

Michael is also either between genders, or simply forgot to care. They’re remaining among the humans, trying to be the shiny symbol of hope it was suggested they act as. To be fair, they’re doing a good job of it as long as they don’t speak for very long. Then it just gets very obvious that Michael hasn’t been paying much attention to humanity for a while, and nobody is much fond of being ignored.

Ba‘al, who right now the others are considering both Celestial and demon because of some sort of mental balancing act, has the absolutely driest deadpan sense of humor the Doctor thinks he’s ever encountered. They aren’t speaking much, most of their words reserved for Israfil, whom they adore so much they’re quietly shouting about it at all times—probably unaware of it, too, given that they seem to like their privacy. Otherwise, the comments they utter are short, to the point, and often meant to needle the deserving into bloody well thinking about what they’re doing.

Raguel is the hardest and easiest of the Celestial lot to deal with. She seems content to stand by and watch, though her gaze feels heavy with judgement. The Doctor tries his best to ignore catching her eyes, because he can judge himself well enough, thanks, and he knows exactly what sort of disaster he is right now. She never says anything about it, though, which, honestly, is almost worse.

The Doctor glances at Jane. “I just realized that Jesus was half-Celestial.” Which would explain a lot.

“Yehoshua?” Gabriel turns around from his unblinking staring at the wall of Black Fire. His eyes, the Doctor idly notes, are the exact same color. It wasn’t really on his radar before, the purple eyes bit, but now the resemblance is rather obvious. It makes the Doctor’s brain itch, like it’s a clue, but he isn’t certain how, not yet. “No, no. Not…” His brow wrinkles. “More than half but not whole? Is there a word for that?”

“Three-quarters,” Jane says, “which makes no sense at all in terms of biology, but I don’t really think your DNA would care.”

“We don’t…have…DNA.” Gabriel hesitates. “I think. Israfil?”

“What?” Israfil snaps. Crowley’s brother (his _uncle,_ nope, that’s still weird) has been in a foul mood since O’s arrival, but the Doctor thinks he was well on his way towards temperamental the moment Black Fire trapped Crowley and Aziraphale in a city full of hungry Racnoss. Israfil has been self-teleporting from the medical tents to their area of the claimed rugby field, listening to any updates, and then going back to medical again, and the Doctor is sitting very hard on the urge to ask _how do I self-teleport_ because that would be so bloody _useful._

“Big brother wants to know if we have DNA,” Saraquel explains without looking up.

Israfil scowls at Gabriel. “How the hell else would we procreate? Even incorporeal beings have to be built somehow! How do you not know this? You have a _daughter,_ Gabriel.”

Gabriel’s cheeks redden. “I haven’t spoken to Gamaliel in…in quite some time.”

Israfil pinches the bridge of his nose. “No. No, I cannot deal with you being an idiot right now, even if it’s past idiocy. Crowley can kick your arse for whatever you did to piss off your own daughter.”

“It—it wasn’t necessarily me!”

Israfil rolls his eyes. “She’s your kid, _and_ she’s Pronoia’s daughter. Yes, you did something stupid, and you’re both too stubborn to cope with the fallout. I have to go deal with people who are literally on Death’s door, so could you please keep your nervous breakdown to yourself for a bit?” Then he vanishes.

“Speaking of, roll for your sanity check,” Jane says to O without looking up from the iPad she borrowed from Jack. Maybe-borrowed. It’s one of the models built about ten years from now that is _extremely_ useful, with projection capabilities integrated from a technology firm that formed about fourteen months ago. It also smells like the rift in Cardiff, which would explain how Jack has one in the first place.

O is driving him to distraction. What does the Doctor say to the person who tried to kill him and then saved his life in the same hour, when it’s been centuries for them and a few hours ago for him?

“No dice. I’m not pushing any buttons aside from the ones you’ve already pushed, anyway,” O mutters darkly.

O is different from the Master, but the Doctor can sense the Master’s name lurking just beneath O’s skin, like O is a shell for who he truly is. Except it also feels like the reverse, and that makes the Doctor want to hope, and hope is a sodding trap.

“Oh, for God’s sake.” Jane digs around in her coat pocket and pulls out an actual twenty-sided die. She tosses it to O. “Have at it.”

To the Doctor’s surprise, O does exactly that. “Twelve. I bloody well told you!”

“Had to check. You’re the one who offed yourself during the last campaign because you wouldn’t get over yourself long enough to keep track and lost control of your impulse control,” Jane says.

Ryan stares at them. “The two of you were playing DnD. You were playing Dungeons and Dragons with O.”

“Yeah? Texting it, anyway. Why not? Passes the time,” Jane replies. “Haven’t since the incident with the aeroplane, though. Shame, that. He’d just figured out how to make pugs multiply like tribbles, and I wanted to see how that’d go.”

“Nobody needs pugs who can multiply like tribbles,” Ryan says.

O snorts. “Says you.”

Yaz grins. “I just wanna know how O offed himself. I mean, if we’re currently putting up with each other—”

O gives Yaz a flat stare. “No.”

“He wouldn’t roll for a trap check. I told him he’d better, but would he listen to me? Nah, he walked right into a falling boulder. Splat. New campaign needed. We’d worked for _six months_ on that one!” Jane directs at O.

O looks at the Doctor instead of Jane. “I’m glad you’re not this sane right now, I really am. It took six months because you’re easily distracted by shiny objects!”

“Yeah, fair,” Jane admits, and then, “did any of us poke at that wall with a stick in regards to Time?”

“Oh, I hate it when I make myself feel stupid.” The Doctor’s younger self glares at the wall. “It’s a flux.”

“It feels like the vortex,” O mutters, and then sniffs. “Doesn’t smell like it, though.”

“I do not even want to know why you’re going around sniffing time vortexes,” the Doctor says, because it sounds exactly like the sort of mental thing the Master would do. “But we can work with that.”

O gives him a sneer that is all too familiar. “What, smelling vortexes?”

“No! Don’t be so stupid,” the Doctor retorts, and O blinks at him in surprise. “If it’s like the vortex, it’s always changing, and if it’s always changing, then we just have to match it!”

“Signal. Match the signal. That won’t get _us_ through, but…” Jane grins. “Yeah, that’s an excellent place to start.”

That makes the day progress a lot faster, when before it felt like everything was crawling. Sometimes all it takes is the barest snap of an idea, a hint of how something is put together. After dark, around nine o’clock, they truly make progress. Their two conversation with Crowley are enlightening, and not in a good way. The Doctor is rather sick of timers counting down to death and destruction, and here he is with another one to face. Dying should really be more peaceful than this.

The Doctor suspects that Jack is keeping Martha and Mickey busy with the EEC work. To be fair, they probably would be, anyway, but those two aren’t stupid. It might take a little while, but they’d figure out who O is just based on the way the conversation spins and gets tossed around on its axis every few minutes.

He’s certain of it when Jack stops by and drags Donna out of the TARDIS by one hand later that night, while Donna noisily protests and tries to kick Jack in the shins. Jack shakes his head and informs Donna that he knows exactly when she last slept, which was five days ago, and she isn’t Time Lord enough to go another day without rest. The certainty is in the look Jack gives O just afterwards, one of pure suspicious speculation.

“Besides, you might wanna be alert if we’re going through a wall of fire tomorrow,” the Doctor suggests, redirecting Jack’s attention to Donna. She relents on the sleeping bit, but still glares at the Doctor for being logical.

It’s still weird when Donna throws a notebook full of her shorthand at him, which is about one-third of an equation to compensate for a part of Black Fire they’re not even looking at yet. “Thanks.”

Donna rolls her eyes. “You’re welcome, sunshine. I’m going!” she yells at Jack, who grins and escorts her, much more politely, off to a tent that presumably has a bed. Donna had probably intended to sleep on the TARDIS, which would mean not sleeping at all.

Rose, meanwhile, doesn’t seem to care where she sleeps. The Doctor knows she’s been awake for quite a while, the Bad Wolf aspect keeping her upright, but it’s still a surprise when he turns around and find her laying in the open doorway of Jane’s TARDIS, awkwardly angled on the ramp, and using his stolen, bunched-up coat for a pillow.

Donna and Rose’s need for rest are what makes him look around, truly taking his surroundings in for the first time in hours. At some point, someone handed him food. About half of the chips still in a basket are sitting on notes written in Gallifreyan, English, and apparently 31st century Dutch, because why not. It’s also nearly two o’clock in the morning. Whoops.

Ryan and Yaz are seated together on two chairs pressed close, using each other as sleeping props. Ryan is possibly drooling on Yaz’s jacket, but she doesn’t seem to mind. Graham announced about an hour ago that Wilf was taking a nap, or was out for the night, but Graham had coffee and more coffee, so that was all right. Israfil stopped teleporting back and forth at some point, and is sitting on a chair next to a portable bench. Ba‘al is stretched out on the bench, possibly asleep, though their head is in Israfil’s lap. Israfil’s hand is in their dark hair, but his head is tilted back, his eyes focused on the stars. Lucy isn’t asleep, but is pacing in front of the fence keeping everyone away from Black Fire. She’s settled on being female again, too, given that she changed her clothing to match.

Almost everyone is exactly where they should be right now. It’s a relief. He’d rather only be worrying about his dad (still weird), his dad’s Celestial fiancé (less weird, just awkward), and London’s twenty-four survivors than the last problem he dealt with, which was the whole of bloody London.

What really has the Doctor looking about, prying into who is where doing what, is that they’re stuck. The biggest stumbling block, the most important thing, the key to the entire sodding puzzle, is eluding them, because none of them know what Black Fire really is. They don’t know what it’s made from, how it can exist, or why—aside from Lucy just making it happen, anyway.

“This _really_ isn’t working,” O says just as the Doctor finishes that thought.

“No, it’s not.”

O glances at him in suspicion, which he’s done every time any version of the Doctor has agreed with him. That’s happened a lot today. “Have you finally figured out that it’s not about the maths?”

“Everything is about the maths, but…yeah, that part’s not going to get us anywhere without more information.” The Doctor tries not to sigh. “I’m glad you’re actually sane right now.”

“Don’t insult me.”

“I’m not.” The Doctor glances at him. Yeah, he’s made up his mind; squashing all of his feelings regarding everything the Master’s done into a corner and leaving them alone is the safest option at the moment. “You deciding that frying Rassilon into a regeneration or three wasn’t that long ago for me. Aside from this little weekend side jaunt, it’s been less than a day.”

“Ah.” O’s expression twitches. “Given definitions of sanity, then.”

“If it’s not about the maths, then what _is_ it about?” the younger version of the Doctor asks, which gains the attention of everyone still awake.

“Well, no, it’s _mostly_ not about the maths, not at the moment,” the Doctor says. “It’s about…given definitions of fire.” O makes an amused noise and finally looks happy about something. Great.

Israfil stops stargazing to stare at him. “How so?”

“Look, I’ve seen you lot demonstrate holy fire and hellfire in the last two days,” the Doctor says. “Those are both…I don’t know, representative of two different points of view, yeah?”

Lucy gives the Doctor a long look, her eyes full of flames, before nodding. “It is a dichotomy distinct enough that one can destroy a denizen of the other, but yes, I suppose that is close enough.”

“All right, I get where this is going,” the Doctor’s younger self says. “If those two types of fire are representations of your differing sides, then what is Black Fire supposed to represent?”

“Oooh, yes, good question, that,” Jane murmurs. “Because almost everything ever translated about this lot involves symbology.”

For the first time, Lucy seems truly baffled by a question asked of her. “I’m uncertain.”

“Starting out simpler, then. Who can _make_ Black Fire?” Jane asks. “Is it just you?”

“No,” Lucy says at once. “Crowley could do so, and he must have remembered that on some level of consciousness, or he would have chosen a simpler rune than Odegra to use for his M25 project. Other symbols could have granted him similar results.”

“You’ve got a look on your face,” the Doctor says to Israfil, who is frowning with one brow crinkled up. It’s not one of the Doctor’s expressions, which is a relief. “You don’t know how to make it.”

Israfil slowly shakes his head. “No. I don’t think I would even know where to begin.”

“I have, but it was…heavens, it was a _very_ long time ago.” Saraquel idly rubs at the spot on his head where the edge of his coronet is sitting. “Oh, wait, I remember now. I used Black Fire to get rid of a Racnoss infestation. It meant we only lost a single continent instead of the entirety of a new planet.”

“Then after the London survivors are out, we could just have Black Fire clean out the city,” Jane says, and then immediately changes her mind. “No, no, no. Bad idea. Isn’t it?”

“Not unless you wanted to vaporize all of London,” Lucy replies dryly. “Which I would find amusing, but others would not.”

“No, I disagree, I would find it _hilarious_,” O interjects.

Lucy eyes O in a way that should probably make all of existence nervous. “Ba‘al is also not capable of Black Fire’s creation, though certain others among my Council could do so.”

“I’ve never made the attempt,” Raguel says before anyone can ask. “I’m not certain I ever want to do so. Gabriel?”

The Doctor glances at the Celestial in question. At some point in the evening, Gabriel swapped the leather-and-gold armor for a fitted Armani suit in pale grey, which makes the Doctor think _corporate executive_ and _wanker_ at the same time. He tries to consider that an unfair assessment, but given the expression on every other Celestial’s face regarding the suit…maybe not.

Gabriel frowns, giving the question a great deal of thought. Possibly too much thought, but the Doctor isn’t going to chastise someone for being thorough. “Michael. He—she—whatever gender Michael is using right now. Michael was made to be a reflection of our Creator, and thus a reflection of the universe. Black Fire exists, therefore Michael could make it. I’m uncertain as to whether Michael would want to do so, though. I could not.”

“The archangel Gabriel is supposed to be a reflection of man,” O says in a flat voice. “Right?”

“Well, yes,” Gabriel answers, giving O a wary look. “Why?”

“You’re all so very daft,” O mutters. “Because if you’re really that reflection, you should be fully capable. These pathetic monkeys make chaos wherever they go, especially when they go into space. That is a complete disaster of epically stupid proportions!” he yells. “How can you lot not have figured out what Black Fire reflects yet?”

“Stop. Yelling. You. Wanker,” Ryan clearly says, though the Doctor doesn’t think he wakes up to do so.

“Medical tents nearby,” Yaz mumbles, and snags part of Ryan’s jacket to cover her face.

“Go ahead and enlighten us, then,” the Doctor’s younger self invites, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair, expression wide and open. It’s his eyes that are showing off the fire of the Time War, reminding the Doctor uncomfortably of how much better he was coping with Everything until Canary Wharf happened.

“Look, how did we get that signal to function so we could talk to the idiots in London?” O sucks in an annoyed breath. “And I really hate saying _we_, because I should have thought of it first, but no, you had to show off being clever again.”

“Least you only feel like half an idiot instead of a whole,” Jane says cheerfully, but her smile is too thin.

“Shut up,” O snaps. “The only way that signal works is by switching its frequency every microsecond, because Black Fire changes what it is at a similar rate. Everyone still following along?”

Raguel gives O a bland look. “We’re Celestial, not stupid.”

“Good enough,” O mutters. “That stupid wall of fire isn’t just opposing itself with those temperature differences. It’s _all the things_, all at once! It’s always, always changing, becoming something different, even though it remains, in essence, the same thing. What else does that?”

“The universe,” the younger Doctor answers. “Black Fire is a reflection of the universe.”

“YES! THANK YOU!” O shouts, glaring up at the sky. “You’re the youngest one of them. Why are you the smart one?”

“Because I’m well-rested, she’s exhausted and lying about it,” the Doctor’s younger self says, “and he’s dying.”

The Doctor pinches the bridge of his nose. “Why did that need to be said?”

“Because you weren’t saying it.”

“Right, yeah. I forgot.” The Doctor glares at his younger self. “My last face was an arsehole.”

“A smarmy, good-looking, intelligent arsehole,” his younger self responds, beaming at him.

“You are not,” O says. The Doctor glances in his direction to find that O looks…

No. Not possible. The Master forgot the meaning of concern centuries ago.

The Doctor sighs and holds up his hand, allowing the wash of regeneration energy to be seen. “Yeah.”

“Yes, I already knew,” Jane says, rolling her eyes when Israfil glares at her. “I knew the minute he answered the phone that I’d gotten it wrong, that I was off by fifty-one hours and thirty-three seconds. But by then, it was definitely too late an’ already a part of my past. Part of current events. You really need to leave around about one o’clock tomorrow afternoon, by the way,” she adds. “But see Crowley first, or he’ll bloody well go off.”

O is still staring at the Doctor. “Why are you dying.”

It isn’t a question so much as flat negation, but the Doctor answers anyway. No harm in it, or Jane would’ve told him not to. “Because you powered an unstable device with a miniature nuclear reactor that wasn’t built to handle that sort of power drain.”

“Radiation poisoning. Ergh.” O visibly shudders. “Not anywhere on my list of ways to regenerate. Wait. Nuclear device failure and radiation—did I irradiate London?” The brief flare of excited manic glee on his face instantly goes away. “No, of course I didn’t get to irradiate London, because you were there, and you’re an idiot, so you soaked up all of that radiation _like a complete sodding idiot_. I don’t know how you’re not dead yet, except I do know, and it’s really annoying!”

The Doctor smirks at O. “It’s really moving when you show that you actually care.”

O leans back, nose wrinkling. “I do not.”

“You do.”

“I absolutely loathe you,” O insists.

Jane snickers. “O, you weren’t pretending to be my friend when you were pretending to be human. You really were being my friend.”

O looks even more offended than before. “I was not!”

“You totally were. You even cackled like a hyena an’ I didn’t pick up on it, didn’t even suspect,” Jane says.

“Why didn’t you?” the Doctor’s younger self asks. “If he was already acting like this?”

“Because I thought she—_he_ was dead! Again! And that it was my bloody fault!” Jane bursts out, and then huffs in a sulk. “It’s purple because the first stars in the universe were purple.”

“Finally!” O reaches up and yanks on his hair with both hands. “It’s like pulling teeth, I swear!”

“It’s sort of like watching a human tennis match, actually,” Saraquel says.

Lucy snorts. “Table tennis, perhaps.”

“It’s star fire. Actual star fire.” Jane stands up and stares at the wall of Black Fire. “That’s why it’s constantly changing, why it can be so many extremes at the same time. It’s the fire from a star being born, and that’s chaos, because you never know what elements are going to end up sitting at its core because you never know what’s going to be floating around the universe in that given moment.”

“Tell me this means something useful,” Israfil says. “Please.”

“A TARDIS can fly through a star,” the Doctor’s younger self explains.

“A properly calibrated TARDIS,” the Doctor adds as they stare at each other. “But it has to be one at full strength, or…well, fwoosh.”

“Mine, then.” Jane is still eying the fire, her head tilted to one side. “No, O. Mine’s had the longest chance to rest, truly rest, and recently at that. Your TARDIS is cranky, and you’re supposed to be pretending _not _to be someone Torchwood would recognize and be very unhappy with.”

“Fine,” O relents, scowling. “But I’m helping with the calibration, or you’ll get it wrong, because you’re an idiot.”

“Why, thank you!” Jane grins at O, which just makes his scowl deepen. “It’s like you don’t want me to die!”

“No, I just want our next bit to happen as scheduled, because it’s a _lot_ of fun,” O says. The Doctor tries not to wince; that is never, ever a good sign. “But it takes a while to calibrate a TARDIS not to fail at flying through a star, so we should probably get started.”

Jane rolls her eyes. “Look, if I can eat a star just to make a pan-dimensional phone call, I can math my way through one!”

“How long?” Israfil asks. “How long, truly?”

“Uhm…a few hours?” the younger Doctor guesses.

“I suppose it depends on if you want to take a chance on the first answer, or run the calculations again to make certain there’s a lack of fwoosh,” the Doctor says. “Because that’s more than a few hours.”

O gives him a disbelieving look. “We could run those calculations until this planet’s star burns out, and I still would not fly through that!”

“What’s the matter?” Jane’s grin has teeth. “We’ve flown through stars before. Raced through one, didn’t we? First one out the other side’s the winner?”

“Yes, I recall. I won,” O retorts. “You, however, got lost.”

“No, I got distracted. Totally not the same thing.”

Israfil sighs just before the Doctor hears the click of the comm system being reactivated. “Crowley?”

“_Urgh. Thank you for breaking up the monotony of staring at London doing absolutely nothing while the Racnoss screech in the background. What is it?_”

“They think they have a way in—”

“We _know_ we have a way in,” the Doctor’s younger self counters, annoyed.

“Fine. They _know_ it,” Israfil says. “But it will take time.”

“_How long? Because I really do not want to be in London right now, much less later this morning._”

“It takes at least an hour just to write the equation, let alone start calculating in the variables…” Jane trails off. “Oh, that’s messy. I can’t quite tell. It’s before noon, though, if that helps.”

“_It’s a lot less distressing than hearing you say Tuesday_,” Crowley replies. “_Hey, Not-Jane. Remember what I said about belief?_”

Jane pauses with one hand on the door to her version of the TARDIS, boot lifted up to step over the sleeping Rose. “Yeah?”

“_This situation definitely applies._”

“Right. Okay. That makes me feel…terrified, actually, thanks.”

Crowley makes an amused noise. “_Trust me, you aren’t nearly as terrified as I am right now._”

“Zaherael.”

The Doctor glances at Gabriel in surprise. There isn’t a hint of _CEO_ or _wanker_ leaking through right now.

“Yeah?” Crowley sounds cautious, more wary of Gabriel than he is of O. The Doctor is vaguely impressed, it takes a lot to outdo the Master on the wariness scale.

“No matter what, we’re coming to get you,” Gabriel says. “Both of you. I swear it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stand up. Stand tall. Breathe.  
With every virtual hand reaching out,  
We're holding each other up.  
We'll make it through this.
> 
> We are defiance made flesh.  
We're still here.  
Together.


	38. Belief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I don’t like this."
> 
> “Yeah? Well, I fucking hate it. And before any of you whinge about how there’s not enough of us to save anyone, I’m gonna remind you that my siblings and I had to deal with tens of thousands of these rabid little fucks when there were only _seven of us, _total.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My beta is so exhausted that I'm pretty sure her brain is in a jar on a desk trying to reform into a solid mass. (Things aren't going well in the Big C post-treatment department and I'm p. sure she's hallucinated all of this month. Send @mrsstanley some love if you can spare it.)
> 
> Cheer-Read by @norcumii as usual, but the blunders are all mine.

Monday, 25th May 2020, 5:04am

Canary Wharf, London

Aziraphale wakes up when the sense of approaching dawn encroaches his sleep. He’s still comfortable, head resting on a warm, denim-clad thigh. A warm breeze is ruffling his hair; he feels sheltered by a sensation of peace and an odd hint of expectation. “Did you not move all night, my dear?”

“Not really.” Crowley is smiling at him when Aziraphale opens his eyes. Everything is gentled by the blue quiet that comes before true dawn, the sun not yet properly above the horizon. Crowley’s eyes are shining, a brilliant golden glow in the lacking light. “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” Aziraphale replies, an answering smile on his lips. He miracles away the faint aftertaste in his mouth caused by sleep and last night’s dinner. If there is one thing Aziraphale has never cared for after his occasional bits of sleep, it’s the waking discovery of a befouled mouth. “Did anything happen while I was resting?”

Crowley turns his head slightly, revealing Torchwood’s earpiece set in place over his right ear. “They figured out how to get a signal through Black Fire last night. Nothing else yet, but there are a bunch of intelligent mad people working together to figure it out. They’ll manage.”

“That’s excellent news.” Aziraphale rolls over so he can look up at Crowley properly. There is a hint of wickedness to Crowley’s smile. “What sort of scheming are you up to, you old serpent?”

Crowley’s smile widens, his eyes shining a bit brighter. “The sort of nefarious plan that requires two people.”

Aziraphale gapes at him. “Anthony J. Crowley! We are _outdoors_. We are outdoors in a public location!”

“Yeah, we are,” Crowley agrees, the smile curling into a smirk. “A public place with no one else about. The CCTV cameras for this area are suddenly pointing in the wrong directions. I nudged an imaging satellite off-course. Everyone downstairs has the sudden urge to have a lie-in, or have breakfast, or do practically anything else. The mic for the earpiece is off. No one has any interest in the rooftop terrace at all.”

Aziraphale suddenly recalls the days when he hadn’t yet realized he loved Crowley, but he had certainly noticed the way the demon Crawly looked. He never approached Crawly with anything other than offer of friendship, though, for a multitude of reasons that mostly had to do with Heaven’s disapproval. He had working hands, and there were male humans available who always seemed to appreciate sharing an angel’s bed.

Even with the distractions of books and scrolls, blessings and wonderful food, Aziraphale had still thought, too often, on what it might be like to make love to a certain ember-haired tempter whose gliding walk was a sin all by itself. Not in his bed, though. Not in a house. He’d thought of lying in soft grass, with nothing but darkness and stars overhead.

He realizes, blushing, that he shared quite a bit of that last part with Crowley without intending to. “My apologies.”

“Nah, you don’t need to apologize.” Crowley grins. “I would’ve been so confused, though. If you’d asked, I mean. I would’ve ruined the entire thing.”

“You would not have,” Aziraphale insists. “But yes, a demon who was bewildered by the concept of being friends with _those_ particular benefits would certainly have been confusing.”

Crowley doesn’t demonstrate his strength very often, mostly because he is a self-admitted layabout. Aziraphale lets out a squeak of surprise when Crowley suddenly wraps his arms around him, pulling him up and over until Aziraphale is settled on top of Crowley’s slender body. Both of them are now lying on the bed, which doesn’t dare to squish too much or sag under their combined weight. “I’d wager that you would’ve been an excellent teacher.”

“I think that would depend on if it was before or after Athens…oh, yes. That was definitely after Athens,” Aziraphale recalls. “In fact, it was during the Trojan War.” For quite a time afterwards, also, but Aziraphale is already rather embarrassed.

Crowley raises an eyebrow. “What was during the Trojan War?”

“Oh. Well, you see, I have what humans refer to as a ‘healthy sex drive’ and I do have a decent imagination,” Aziraphale says, his face burning hot. “And you were—you are—very…the way you walked. Your hair. Even your eyes. I…might’ve…spent a few decades pleasuring myself to thoughts of you just to get it out of my system so I would stop thinking about it so much,” he blurts out in a speedy rush.

Crowley stares at him, lips slightly parted, eyes wide and entirely serpent gold. “You were…” He swallows, a fascinating line of motion along the length of his throat. “You were thinking of me that way three thousand yearsss ago?”

“Yes.” Aziraphale bites his lip. “I am very sorry—”

“Ssshut up.” Crowley is still gazing at him, unblinking. “Don’t apologize, angel. It’s just…well, it sort of makes me want to sssnog you until I’m incapable of thinking.”

Aziraphale feels his shoulders relax. He should really stop expecting the worst, especially from his new fiancé. “As much as I truly enjoy that activity…the Racnoss, dear?”

“That part’sss fine. We have…” Crowley’s pupils widen a bit, his gaze unfocusing to look at or feel something Aziraphale has never been able to discern. As much as Aziraphale would like to learn how to find Crowley anywhere on this planet, it seems to be an ability that is Crowley-specific. “At least three hoursss before there isss trouble.”

“Excellent. That is plenty of time to cause your brain to lose its ability to function, _and_ to have breakfast.”

“We could do that lassst part first?” Crowley suggests hesitantly. “I wouldn’t mind.”

Aziraphale smiles and lowers his head until he’s speaking the words directly against Crowley’s lips. “That’s all right, dear. I’m currently quite happy exactly where I am.”

Then the Racnoss shriek like a symphony produced by Hell. Unlike last night, the Racnoss are much closer to Canary Wharf.

“Well.” Aziraphale swallows, wide-eyed. “That certainly killed the mood.”

Crowley groans and thumps his head back on the hotel pillow. “I’ll exterminate all of them just for that.”

“Do we still have three hours?” Aziraphale asks nervously.

“Yeah, we do.” Crowley waits until Aziraphale rolls off of him and sits up before Crowley props himself up on his elbows. “I don’t have specifics, things are a bit wishy-washy for timing today, but we have time to prepare.”

“Then I suppose we’ll be having breakfast, after all,” Aziraphale decides, even though his appetite has rarely been more lacking than it is at the moment. “If you’re going to be fighting, my dear, I suggest something a bit more fortifying than coffee.”

“Coffee is the breakfast of bloody champions, angel.” Crowley takes Aziraphale’s hand and then lifts it slowly, planting a delicate kiss on the back that tickles Aziraphale’s skin and makes him blush. Again. “Come on. Maybe Nanny Bigot slept through the racket.”

Aziraphale frowns as he stands and retrieves his coat. “One can only hope.”

* * * *

Crowley did try to have more for breakfast than coffee. Turns out Kierto Toth was a chef, in part, because he’s a nervous chef. Baked goods are what happens when he’s nervous.

Given the load of pastries weighing down the tables, Kierto Toth made _all_ the baked goods. Fucking Someone, he must’ve used up every single bit of flour, butter, and sugar in this entire bloody hotel.

Aziraphale gets a single whiff of it and immediately changes his mind about a lacking appetite. He has a plate built up to rival the tables, because nothing is going to truly kill his angel’s appetite for breakfast except immediate impending death.

The threat isn’t so immediate on this floor of the hotel. Doesn’t sound that way, at least, not to anyone else. Crowley can feel the vibrations of the Racnoss through the floor, and it’s making him grit his teeth.

Knowing Crowley’s habits, Aziraphale sought out and then gave him a small plate with only a fresh scone resting on it. Crowley stares at his plate as the sun rises, turning the dimness of the hotel into golden light. He reaches into his jacket and puts his glasses back on.

All he can think about is the scone Aziraphale gave him in 1898. It was the last thing the angel would give him until somewhere in the middle of a World War I battlefield, but that had been bandages and a lecture, which doesn’t really count.

Crowley has no idea how long Aziraphale has been trying to get his attention until “_Anthony!_” finally penetrates his scone-watching. “What?” he asks, lifting his head. Aziraphale is giving him a concerned look. So are Granger, Pugh, O’Riley, Podder, Johnson, and Kierto Toth. When the fuck had they turned up? Why were they sitting here? How the hell did Aziraphale empty that plate already—no, he knows the answer to that question.

“They’re coming, aren’t they?” Podder asks, her dark eyes steady and unafraid. He’s bloody envious.

The military types and the MEG volunteer are sitting with Crowley because they’re waiting for a fearless leader to give them the instructions that’ll save their arses. Crowley had _never_ wanted to be a leader, even back when there were so few of them and the Racnoss were so many. That was Michael’s job. Gabriel’s job. Anyone but Crowley. Ask him to stop time, give him a task and by Her, he’d see it done, but fuck, he doesn’t want to be in charge.

“Yeah. Yeah, they are,” Crowley says, but none of them look surprised. Pugh might be on the verge of passing out, but is holding himself together as best he can.

Five humans and one alien are looking at him as if he’s going to save them all. Aziraphale is looking at Crowley as if it’s already a done deal.

No pressure or anything.

“Okay. I’ve been thinking about this all night, and it’s the best I’ve got, so feel free to tell me it’s shit,” Crowley says, and they all lean forward to listen. Even Davies is wandering close enough to eavesdrop. Right; MEG volunteer, just like Kierto Toth, but Jeffrey Davies doesn’t have a weapon. He just became Crowd Control by default.

“Stay off the roof. If I block off the other access points, the Racnoss will only have the single stairway. Find the chokepoint, three of you on each side, and turn it into a spider-centaur killing zone. Don’t let them get past that point.”

“I dunno about the others, but I don’t have that many rounds left, sir,” Johnson says.

Crowley rolls his eyes and snaps his fingers. “Fixed. For everyone, by the way. You’re welcome.”

“That does not exactly improve my situation with the sword, dear,” Aziraphale reminds him. “A sword isn’t a distance weapon.”

“Yeah.” Crowley reaches into the ether and pulls forth his unstrung bow and the quiver that will never be empty. “That’s why we’re swapping, angel.”

Aziraphale accepts both items from him with hesitant hands. “It’s been quite a while since I used a longbow.”

“Which is about as long as it’s been since I’ve used a sword, so we’re even.”

“Oh. Then I suppose I should…” Aziraphale has a faint frown on his face when he reaches for and retrieves his sword. Crowley didn’t recognize it the first time he saw it after being rescued from Hell, but he does now. His hesitance is even more noticeable than Aziraphale’s, because he knew the angel this sword once belonged to. It’s why it hung in the armory, available for any angel in need.

They’ve been dead for millennia. Crowley doubts they’d mind very much that their sword has been claimed by a fellow warrior.

“Can you light it, my dear?” Aziraphale asks.

“That part isn’t going to be the difficulty.” _Not dying is going to be the difficulty_. “Listen.” Crowley is both gratified and unnerved when everyone leans closer. “The fastest way to kill a Racnoss is to shoot it through one of their two primary eyes.” He points at his own face. “Just like with us. Nail the brain and take them out of the game, because fast is going to matter. I’m going to try to keep them from getting up here at all, but if they swarm us, I won’t be able to keep up.”

“You’re going out there.” Aziraphale is trying very hard not to look disapproving, but instead he just looks borderline ill with concern. “You’re going to light my sword and burn the webs so the Racnoss can’t ascend the building.”

“Best as I can, yeah. They’ll have trouble at first, because I meant it about that lack of friction, but these fuckers can travel through the void between the stars. They formed in the darkness before gravity really understood how to be itself. The Racnoss will figure it out, and it won’t take long.”

“Right, then.” O’Riley blows out a quick breath, a soldier’s moment of readiness before everyone leaps up to go over the wall. “What about the windows, sir?”

“Crowley. _Crowley!_ Not _sir._” If there is a reason why Aziraphale didn’t go to Europe to work as an actual blessed medic during World War II, there is also a fucking reason why Crowley didn’t volunteer to be a soldier for that entire mess. Spying was easier, one of his only assignments that had been a relief to carry out, and it went just fine until he was ordered to get himself transferred to MI6 and shipped off to Europe. “The windows will hold for a while. They’re reinforced in more than one way, but if I get too distracted, that reinforcement might not matter. Your advantage is that the Racnoss are single-minded when they’re hungry. They’ll go for the easy access point on the roof, and they’ll follow each other because they won’t think to do anything else. If everyone else stays out of sight, the Racnoss won’t have a reason to try for a shortcut through a broken window.”

“I don’t like this,” Granger says bluntly.

“Yeah? Well, I fucking hate it,” Crowley retorts. “And before any of you whinge about how there’s not enough of us to save anyone, I’m gonna remind you that my siblings and I had to deal with tens of thousands of these rabid little fucks when there were only _seven of us, total._”

“Language, dear,” Aziraphale murmurs. Crowley nearly growls back at him.

“At least it’s a posh place for a last stand,” Pugh says, absolutely white in the face.

“Last stand? Who the fuck said anything about that? This is us holding out until rescue arrives, and I’ve been told that will be before noon.”

“Can we—can we hold this place until noon?” Johnson asks, eyes wide. “Even with infinite ammunition, it’s only seven in the morning. Five hours is a long slog to fire a rifle, and that’s if nothing jams or overheats.”

“Nothing’s going to overheat.” Crowley had forgotten that bit; it was nice of Johnson to remind him. He also nudges Kierto Toth’s whatever-it-is so it’ll do everything the alien chef asks of it for as long as it’s needed. “Besides, haven’t any of you ever played bloody video games for six hours straight? This is weak sauce, here.”

“Keyboards and mice aren’t that heavy, sir,” O’Riley says dryly.

“Details,” Crowley says. Aziraphale gives him a startled look when he feels a _heavy_ blessing take hold on the other six. They aren’t going to get tired now, not in any sense of the word, until they’re safely out of London. These soldiers might faceplant onto the ground the moment they’re beyond the M25, but better sleeping off that sort of miraculous boost than being eaten by fucking Racnoss. “Davies, you’re MEG like Kierto Toth here. Your job is to keep everyone else hidden. If we have to move, you’re on the hook for calming them down after Aziraphale or I teleport them somewhere else. You okay with that?”

“Yeah, I can do that. What about Nanny Bigot and Donny the Wanker?” Davies asks.

Crowley likes that the nickname is spreading, and that Donny earned a worse one. Of course, it means he also needs to weigh a few pros and cons. Free will, survival, how much is too much—fuck it, he can’t handle that kind of moral shit-sifting right now. “Nanny Bigot and Donny the Wanker have just become mute for the duration. Someone might still have to sit on them, but they won’t be shrieking. Those two terrifying grandkids of Nanny Bigot’s will sleep through it all, which should also keep things down to a dull and terrifying roar.”

“Seven adults for eight kids, not counting the obnoxious quartet.” Davies nods. “I’ll do what I can.”

“Thanks.”

“Crowley, where should I send them if it needs to be me?” Aziraphale asks. “Better to know this now, dear.”

“Donna’s house. Chiswick. It’s already warded to keep out things that would want to hurt anyone living there; might as well take advantage,” Crowley says. “And it’s a hell of a long way from Canary Wharf.” Not really, but that relocation will give everyone time to regroup. The Racnoss will have to find them again.

Those wards can be overrun if enough Racnoss gather, but that takes time. It’ll give his kid the chance to save everyone.

“That’s an excellent idea.” Aziraphale beams at him. “Brilliant, dear.”

“Desperation and brilliance are the same fucking thing—” Crowley jerks his head towards the window. “East. North. Nothing from the west or the south, not yet, but they don’t like water. That’ll help for a while.”

“Right. Let’s get prepared, you lot.” Granger stands up at once. “Permission to choose a bottleneck, sir?” At least this time she’s asking Aziraphale, not Crowley.

Aziraphale hesitates for a moment before his expression tightens, his chin lifting. “Granted. I’ll join you in a moment.”

“Let’s go, loves. Time to get ready to kill an awful lot of spiders,” Granger says, turning the mild statement into an order.

“Maybe if we kill enough of them, we’ll block the stairwell,” O’Riley comments as he follows her.

Crowley stands up and snags Pugh by the arm after the others go by. “Hey.”

Pugh looks even more terrified than before. “Don’t—I can do this!”

“Yeah, I know, but I might be able to help make it easier for you to do that,” Crowley says.

“Help me how?” Pugh asks. At this stage in the PTSD game, he’s paranoid. Justifiably, but it won’t work in anyone’s favor once the shooting starts.

“Look. Listen.” Crowley pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. “World War I. I had no choice. I was in the trenches, all right? I saw what this bullshit called _modern_ warfare does to humans. Shit, it did the same to me, and I definitely wasn’t supposed to be succumbing to ‘human’ weaknesses. But that’s the thing. It’s not a weakness.” Crowley stares at Pugh, who is radiating soured nerves and fear. “If you’ve just watched a hundred men die around you, you’re not exactly choosing to be traumatized. Nobody chooses to be traumatized; it’s just a thing that happens. You can get PTSD from some really silly shit, too, but that doesn’t mean it’s not real. Some deal with the trauma, some don’t, some die. That was what we all knew. One of the bravest humans I’d met in centuries had a brain turned into mush from shellshock after too many engagements. Too many times over the wall. It’s not and never will be a _failing_ to want to survive.”

Pugh swallows noisily, his eyes suspiciously bright. “You said—you said you might be able to help me.”

“That’s all you get out of that? Well, that was a waste of baring my soul, wasn’t it?” Crowley smirks at Pugh and shakes his head when Pugh tries to stutter out an apology. “Nah, didn’t mean it. But I did mean the helping bit. I can give you a nudge, up here.” Crowley taps his own temple. “You’ll make it through this fight. No shellshock, none of the PTSD that took you down yesterday morning. It’s just that it has to balance out. When you crash after everyone is safe, when you’re out of this city, you’ll crash harder than you will if you do this as-is.”

“Crash…how bad?” Pugh doesn’t look like he needs an answer so much as he wants someone to confirm a really good guess.

“Crashing hard enough that it might end your military career. Not hard enough that it’ll fuck up your life as a civilian, but the military? Doubt you’d be able to handle it ever again.”

Pugh bites his lower lip and thinks on the offer. It makes Crowley feel better that Pugh isn’t just jumping at the chance to have his brain chemistry fucked with. Less guilt for him: hurray. “Yes. Okay, sir. Nudge. I’ll take the nudge. I don’t want anyone else to die in London because of me. Not today.”

_Maybe it won’t be a career-ender,_ Crowley thinks, and snaps his fingers again. “One nudge, done. Feel better?”

“Feeling a lot less terrified, yeah.” Pugh no longer looks sick-pale, just Welsh-pale. “Thanks.”

“Thank me by not fucking dying.”

Crowley rubs his eyes and then stares down at the floor as Pugh leaves. Fuck, he already doesn’t like today, and it’s just starting.

Fingers tuck themselves beneath his chin and lift his head. Crowley finds himself meeting Aziraphale’s steady, stormy blue gaze. The quiver is already on his back, the dark leather strap and its ancient glyph-patterns striking against beige and blue. “That was a very kind thing you did.”

“Shaddup,” Crowley mumbles. He still has issues with _nice_, and _kind_ kicks that same stupid twitchy button. Not near as bad as it used to, but he spent six months in Hell this weekend. That definitely wasn’t the best time to get stuck in a dimension that is a solid, painful reminder of how things used to be. Listening to the Racnoss all night didn’t help.

“I shan’t,” Aziraphale replies, smiling. “My wonderful ex-demon. I love you very much.”

Crowley reaches out and snags Aziraphale’s left hand. Ring. Fiancé. He’s a fucking archangel. Nobody’s dying today unless they’re Racnoss. Discorporation is fine; death is not.

He’s so twisted up from everything that happened in such a short time that he has to force the words out. “Angel. I will never _stop_ loving you.” His grip on Aziraphale tightens and releases as the first close shriek of an enraged Racnoss assaults his sensitive hearing. “Shit. Gotta go, Zira. Terrify the hell out of them for me, all right?”

“I’m an angel,” Aziraphale says primly. “I’m not terrifying.”

“Yeah, uh huh. How’d that line go? ‘Be not afraid?’ Didn’t that result in terrified humans every single time?”

Aziraphale shuts him up by kissing him. “Daft old serpent. You owe me a wedding.”

Crowley grins and flicks out his forked tongue at Aziraphale’s mouth, making him laugh. “Should I wear bells?”

Aziraphale huffs. “Wear whatever you like, as long as you’re still alive in order to do so.”

Crowley squeezes Aziraphale’s hand again and then reluctantly lets go. “Same to you, angel.” Then he grits his teeth and makes himself teleport up to the hotel roof, because otherwise he won’t leave. He’ll stay, none of this will go right, and people will die.

He tightens his grip on Aziraphale’s sword and lights it with a thought—not standard orange flame, not for this. This is white and blazing gold. Holy fire, the flame of creation.

The Racnoss deserve the very best.

“I’m really stupid, aren’t I?” Crowley murmurs to himself. Then he calls forth his wings and runs to the edge, leaping over the terrace wall and diving off the roof.

The first web is already stretched between the hotel and the building across the street. Crowley pulls in his wings and lets himself fall, glad his sunglasses do such a good job of covering his eyes.

The sword slices through the web. Both ends of it start to burn as they fall. “Hi there, you ancient fucks! Didja miss me?”

The Racnoss shriek in rage at being thwarted. The hunger is getting to them; they’ve forgotten how to speak.

“I’ll take that as a no, then,” Crowley says, and lets his wings carry him upwards when the Racnoss take the bait and try to pull him out of the sky.

It isn’t only about slicing through the webs. His body is full of Huon particles. He’s now the tastiest treat in Canary Wharf, and that’ll keep the Racnoss from devoting all of their single-minded attention to the hotel. It won’t stop them all, won’t even keep them from trying to climb to the other source of food they can smell. It’s just a distraction, another way of giving everyone a bit more time.

There’s an idea. Nothing can stop him from briefly freezing time, but…no. No, there’s something about doing it that way that doesn’t work. The memory is distant and almost as ancient as he is, though.

When he finds the next web, Crowley stops time with a thought and slices through it with the sword. The webbing is so thick, so sticky, that it’s already gluing itself back together before it can sever…because it’s not burning.

Crowley looks at Aziraphale’s sword, at the flames still lighting it, but not moving. Not flickering.

It’s like the paint, the blood that went onto the doors in Soho to protect the neighborhood before they realized they had a fucking lot more to worry about than Samael and a few shit demons. He told them not to apply it too thickly, or when time resumed, it would drip and ruin the rune.

“I’m holding you,” Crowley tells the sword. “I’m the one saying what time is doing right now. That means you should be doing your job.” He made his mobile play music when time was stopped. This isn’t really that much different.

The sword doesn’t reply. Great; Aziraphale has already rubbed off on it. Stubborn as anything.

The blood flowed from sliced skin; it acted like paint when they manipulated it, but it stopped moving the moment the paintbrush went away. The fire of Creation burned before Time existed, before Mother realized that Time made it a lot easier to make things when She only had to nudge things into motion, not do every single bit of work Herself.

Holy fire is of Her, but it it’s not _Her_. In some ways, it’s just fire, and right now, it’s behaving like fire that’s frozen in time.

Crowley’s mobile went against the nature of the universe because it was his, but holy fire doesn’t belong to him. He has permission to bear it and use it, but holy fire belongs to Her, and to everything. Some things can’t be cheated.

“Guess I’m doing this the hard way.” Time resumes. Crowley slices through the thick strand of webbing and looks around—only to find more webs, ones that hadn’t been there before he stopped time.

He dives out of the way of a Racnoss when it leaps from a web above his head and tries to land on him. “SHIT!”

The Racnoss existed before Time. They don’t care if he stops time or not!

Crowley activates the Torchwood mic while leading the Racnoss around by their noses, slicing through webbing as he flies for his fucking life. “So, I might’ve just fucked up.”

* * * *

Aziraphale strings the bow after Crowley leaves, if only so any embarrassing first attempts aren’t witnessed. He remembers more than he realized, bending the lower limb and securing the bowyer’s knot at the top with flawless precision. _Wonderful_, he thinks, trying not to dwell on why he needs precision right now. The bowstring catches his attention for a brief moment, as the material is like nothing he’s ever seen.

Crowley made the bow, Aziraphale realizes. It wasn’t gifted by Her, but created by an archangel who wasn’t made to be a fighter, didn’t _want_ to be a fighter, but refused to stand aside when threats like the Racnoss appeared in the universe.

Aziraphale hurries to the stairwell that leads to the roof terrace, the exit protected only by glass doors. The Racnoss will break through those easily—and it seems that the human soldiers suddenly under his command have chosen the doors as their first choke point. “Why?” he asks, trying to sound curious instead of accusatory. Human logic in certain military situations is often ingenious for its basis in insanity.

“Well, there are four choke points on this stairwell if we include the doors,” Captain Granger says, brushing her hair back from her face before she begins pulling on a pair of thin gloves that smell like cordite. “If we’re pushed back, we have two points of retreat before we have to abandon this floor.”

“Which would mean abandoning the hotel, so we’re digging for all the spare time we can,” Sergeant Podder adds. “This being an enclosed stairwell—well, now it is, and I’m not asking how Crowley did that—keeps them herded along towards us like good little alien spider-sheep.”

“And each choke point is booby-trapped.” Kierto Toth tilts his head at Agent Johnson.

Agent Johnson grins with unrepentant glee. “I was with the demolitions teams. Still had enough to make a bit of a mess without bringing everything down on our heads, but I doubt the Racnoss will like them very much. Every single doorway has its own little bit of explosive joy.”

“Brilliant,” Aziraphale says, because it is. It’s also mad, but he’s seen, time and time again through the millennia, how that human madness turns impossible situations into victories.

Corporal O’Riley taps a spot on the wall that looks rather like a beetle. “We’ve all taken practice shots from where you are, since we’ll be firing from that first landing. It’s the size of a Racnoss eye. Gotta say, Pugh is a damned good shot.”

Sergeant Pugh flushes. “Sharpshooter tourneys as a kid.”

Aziraphale snags an arrow from the quiver, feeling a brief and faint burst of magic as it is immediately replaced by another. He wants to ask Crowley how the quiver works, but later. For now, he notches the arrow and lifts, pulling the feathered tail back until the bow feels like it has the right sort of arch.

“Won’t have time for that sort of turtle speed when the Racnoss get here, sir,” Sergeant Podder says.

“I do need to get a feel for how she handles before that time, though,” Aziraphale counters. There. Perfect. He releases the arrow and is quite satisfied when it embeds itself in the concrete, right in the center of the oval.

“Holy shit,” Corporeal O’Riley says. “You sure you’re a bookseller?”

Aziraphale lowers the bow, but retrieves another arrow and readies it. “Until just recently…” He thinks of his shop, nothing but rubble in a crater made by Typhaon. His books are safe, all of them moved to Sheffield when Crowley showed them that distant and empty home far from London, but his home—

—his home is Crowley. The shop was never the point, it was an excuse.

“Maybe I will be a bookseller again,” Aziraphale says, “but not today.”

When the Racnoss arrive, it happens quickly. Aziraphale isn’t the only one to put out the eyes of the first Racnoss who darkens their doorway. Then that body is trampled as more Racnoss attempt to force their way inside.

Aziraphale thinks hard at his new little Bluetooth, willing it to call Crowley’s mobile. The moment he hears the click of the signal being picked up, he says, “They’re here, Crowley.”

“_I know. My fault. Doing my best, but it looks like every fucking Racnoss in the city decided to visit our hotel._”

“How rude. Without a reservation, even.” Aziraphale doesn’t let that news slow him down. Now that he has the feel for this bow, it is no trouble at all to send arrow after arrow into Racnoss bodies. They might have to set off the explosives for the first choke point just to give them more range for exterminating the Racnoss before the blasted things go for the windows, after all. “Plan, my dear?”

“_Live long enough to get rescued._”

Aziraphale nods and looses another arrow. “I’m very fond of that plan.” The broken glass doors are squealing as the Racnoss presses against what’s left of their frame. “Agent Johnson, blow the first charges at the door, would you please?”

Agent Johnson gives him a startled look. “Now, sir? That’ll open up the doors for more of them to come through!”

“Yes, it will, but his choke point isn’t working in our favor!” Aziraphale scowls and looses in rapid succession, taking down the next two Racnoss who leap forward over the bodies that have suddenly vanished. That wasn’t Aziraphale’s doing, or Crowley’s; the Racnoss themselves cleared their own path. “We need the extra room in order to kill them faster!”

“Agreed,” Captain Ranger says after firing a short burst at the next Racnoss’s head. Aziraphale tries very hard to ignore the resulting mess. Crowley was very kind to Sergeant Pugh when he mentioned certain facts about the Great War, but now Aziraphale can’t stop thinking about how awful it had been. “Lils, blow the first set of charges!”

Agent Johnson fishes out her remote. “Everyone look away. It’s going to be bright.”

Aziraphale is much more concerned about _loud_, but forces his eyes and ears to compensate. He keeps sending arrows at the Racnoss to cover the humans, even vulnerable Kierto Toth, until they’re able to begin firing again. The expanded doorway does indeed allow more Racnoss to squeeze through, but it increases the rate at which the blasted hungry things die. Before, he had only ever discorporated other beings. This is far more permanent.

_I made it through six thousand years on this world without ever once needing to kill anything,_ Aziraphale thinks sadly, but he doesn’t let that sense of loss stop him. The allies he stands with deserve to survive.

* * * *

Jeffrey Davies isn’t a welcome part of MEG for nothing. He wastes no time gathering up the useful people in their little enclave—Jacky, who is also translating for Andy and Alena; Morgan, Allison, teenage Zack, and Michonne, who wants so badly to be helpful. Nichola is taking her turn with baby Phoenix, but eight of them are enough to gather up all the pillows that might be needed, the blankets, and the crates of water from the storage cupboard.

All of it goes into the sealed refrigerator for the hotel restaurant. Kierto Toth is a smart one, the chef who knows that the refrigerators and freezers for good quality restaurants are built like bank vaults: air-tight, but with fresh air coming in all the time from the cooling system. It will be cold in the fridge, but they’ll be all right. Jeffrey worried most about the baby, precious and tiny, but Allison told him about how tiny babies were just like serpents in the cold, hibernating with their protective layers of baby fat. Resting against a human breast, though, the baby won’t get that cold. Jeffrey says a brief prayer to Allah that it will be so.

He suddenly wants another child. What an odd time to have that sort of realization. He’s proud of his son, but when he and his wife divorced, Jeffrey let go of the idea of ever giving his beloved son the siblings he deserved. He is not yet too old to be a father again, and he’s been forced to recognize how many in this world have no one.

Jeffrey praises Michonne for her help, then realizes Mike has slipped in to help carry the non-perishables like crisps, just in case they have to stay for longer than a few hours. He wonders who looks after them, and their silent sister Elsie.

The most difficult part of the process isn’t explaining the concept of the refrigerator’s safety to the others. It’s getting Donny the Blasted Idiot and the shrieking harpy Nanny Bigot to cooperate. They’re mute, as Crowley promised—he thanks Allah yet again for sending them a practical angel with a sense of humor—but Jeffrey and Morgan have to all but drag the fools in to the refrigerator. Jeffrey escorts Chase to the industrial refrigerator himself when she asks, holding her arm as gently as if it were precious china. Then they’re inside, the door is sealed, and the lights above them illuminate people who are already beginning to sensibly turn stacks of blankets and pillows into warm nests.

“We just have to be silent?” Adrian whispers, the little boy’s voice falling into sudden, fearful silence.

“Yes,” Jeffrey says firmly. “We might hear a bit of a ruckus, but the soldiers and the angels will protect us from the Racnoss.”

Little Millie removes her thumb from her mouth. “Are they really angels?”

“They can’t be,” Zack says, frowning. “I mean, they’re great and all, don’t get me wrong, but…they look like us. They act like they’re just…just people.”

“Maybe that’s what the best sort of angel should be,” Chase says. “Crowley, the one with the long fingers who smells a bit like smoke and ozone—he offered to heal my eyes. He didn’t just _do_ it, and I think he really could. But he asked, and said it should be my choice, and no one else’s. I’m thinking about it, because the idea of it even being a choice is…it’s amazing. I’d never once thought I’d see anything, but now that I might, I’m not sure if I want to. I have an amazing sense of smell. I can read things with my fingertips and live in other worlds written by others.”

“He offered to cure our deafness, too, if we wished,” Jacky translates for Alena. “We have the same thoughts. We would hear, yes, but would we lose our ability to appreciate what our eyes can see? Would sound be overwhelming? It’s a difficult decision to make.”

“When my father first came to this country, he was a Muslim in a land where he wasn’t wanted,” Jeffrey says quietly. A story will occupy the minds of the kids, and maybe the others, too. “It was the 1950s, and he lived in a poor area of London. One day, a mob of cruel teenagers mocked his robes and the prayer rug still bundled across his back. They threw a few empty cans, a few pebbles, and then they started chasing him.

“Soho was different in those days. It wasn’t the den of sin that came with the 1960s, or the peace and love culture that invaded in the 1970s, which helped turn Soho into the mishmash it is now. But then, it was poor, and in that poor area of London, my father ran for his life.

“There’s a bookshop on the corner of Greek Street. A white-haired man, perhaps middle-aged, came out of that shop, holding the door open, and waved for my father to go inside. My father did as he was told, and said to me later that his hands were shaking, his knees trembling. He’d never had to run from anyone before, knowing that if he stopped, if they cornered him, he’d die.

“That bookseller closed the door and remained on the outside, facing the hoodlums who would have killed my father. My father has no idea what the bookseller said, but they all fled with their tails between their legs. Like whipped dogs. Then he came back inside, smiled at my father, and offered him tea.”

“Badass,” Zack whispers.

“When I ten years old, my father walked me through Soho to see if the bookshop still stood. Soho was no longer poor, but it…well, it stunk,” Jeffrey says in wry remembrance. “There were a lot of shops about that weren’t meant for kids. But that bookshop, it was there. My father said it looked just the same. We went inside, and the white-haired man was there. He welcomed us in Arabic, my father’s native tongue, and we had mint tea while we spoke of…I don’t truly remember. That was a long time ago, but I remember that it was a peaceful afternoon.

“When we left, my father told me that the white-haired man was the same bookseller who’d saved his life years before. He said the bookseller looked exactly the same.” Jeffrey smiles. “That bookseller, Aziraphale, still looks exactly like I remember him.”

“Then he’s either an alien, or an angel,” Morgan says.

“Doesn’t matter what he is,” Allison rebuffs, taking baby Phoenix from Nicola when the latter complains about heavy babies, even if they’re _bellissima_. “Aziraphale is helping us, and he’s not the only one. Lils, Jasmine, Mick, Linda, Haul, Kierto Toth, and Crowley are fighting for us, too. I’m praying for all of them.”

“I’m praying for us, too,” Marge says in her rough and trembling voice, though her eyes and hands are steady. “God willing, none of us will see a Racnoss today.”

* * * *

“WHAT?” Israfil can’t glare at his brother because his brother is on the other side of a fucking wall of fire. “Are you out of your fucking mind?”

“_No!_” Crowley’s voice retorts through the mic. “_Try to sound a bit more encouraging, huh?_”

“Crowley,” Israfil tries to sound calm, at least. He doesn’t really succeed. “You’re flying around Canary Wharf while a swarm of Racnoss are trying to climb a building, slicing down webs with nothing but a flaming sword.”

“_Well, maybe a bit mental. That’s still not you being encouraging._”

Lucy reaches out and rests her hand on Israfil’s bare forearm. Her touch stings, but doesn’t burn. It’s also familiar, a request for silence, a gesture of assistance.

“Maghunta_._” Lucy’s voice is cool and composed. At least someone is. “You and your surviving brethren will assist Crowley and the Principality Aziraphale.”

“_We’re already following the Racnoss, my Prince,_” Maghunta replies. One of her cohorts is cackling in the background. Israfil decides he doesn’t even want to know how Maghunta ended up with one of the Torchwood comms. “_Lord Crowley, we’ll be joining you in five minutes._”

“_For fuck’s sake, stop calling me that!_”

“Crowley, how close are the Racnoss?” Michael asks.

“_Are you fucking—Michael. Dear eldest idiot fucking brother. Sister. Whichever. I’m slicing Racnoss webs._ _How sodding close do you think they are?_” Crowley yells.

Michael suddenly appears at Israfil’s opposite side, fully female in appearance, her armor shifted to match. “Close enough, I suppose,” Michael answers Crowley. “How close are we to getting through?” she asks Israfil.

“Not close enough.” Israfil wills it forth and suddenly has his staff, gripping it tightly with both hands. “You’ve spoken to Uriel again, I see.”

“She has a gender preference when it comes to parts. I don’t particularly mind,” Michael says. “It isn’t as if Uriel minds it when I wander around in other forms. It would be like criticizing you for dating someone who believes gender is stupid.”

Israfil takes a bewildered moment to stare at Michael. That’s quite a step forward from her lectures about dating a demon, which had been entirely ridiculous. “Are you just saying that because Ba‘al is balanced?”

“No. I have spent too little time on Earth. These past two days have been…educational,” Michael admits. “I needed that education. Truthfully, I think Gabriel should consider living here for a year. It would do him good.”

“I’ll think about that, but later.” Israfil turns around and strides back to Not-Jane’s TARDIS. “How. Long?”

“Too long,” the youngest version of his nephew says, running his hands through his short hair. “The second set’s not done yet, and I’m really not all that fond of dying.”

“Well, it’s not like you’re going to avoid it,” John mutters.

The Doctor rolls his eyes. “That’s the temporary sort! I’m a bit more worried about the permanent version!”

Israfil glances at O, who is scowling, his lips in a downturned line of frustration. He knows they’re not ready. While Israfil knows O doesn’t care about anyone in London, he does care about this project, because he hates to be wrong.

Then Israfil looks at Not-Jane, who is resting both hands on her ship’s console, staring at the still hourglass. “Jane?” He doesn’t know how to interpret the expression on her face, but it’s hard to focus on interpretation as he listens to what Aziraphale and Crowley are saying to each other, as Maghunta falls out of the sky and spears a Racnoss that was in the midst of trying to slice his brother in half. “Everyone in London will be fine. I really do believe that.”

“Belief,” she says, and flips the hourglass. Her eyes lock onto the falling grains of sand, and Israfil feels a chill crawl up his spine. He can feel what she’s doing, even if he can’t experience it. Crowley sometimes does the same thing, slowing down his perception of Time so he can watch something happen in slow motion.

“What about belief?” John asks, glancing at his elder self.

“Crowley said…” She blinks and lifts her head, looking at Israfil. “He said that belief applied to this.”

“Well?” O bursts out, demonstrating again that he has no patience at all.

Jane grins. “I know what to do. Get everyone into the TARDIS who can fight the Racnoss and survive it. Which means _not you!_” she tells Rose, who only holds up her hands in acceptance.

“That’s no one except Celestials, really,” John points out.

“Yeah, but you three are staying anyway, because she needs pilots.” Jane rolls her eyes at O. “You don’t have to leave the ship, you utter whingeball!”

“I wasn’t planning on it!” O retorts.

“I can’t die. I can help,” Jack says, but then Rose is tugging on his arm, her eyes solid gold.

“Jack,” she murmurs. “Not this time.”

Jack stares at her. “Why not?”

The Bad Wolf doesn’t answer. “Escort a lady from the ship, good Captain?”

“Goddammit,” Jack says, but he gives in.

O visibly shivers as the Bad Wolf walks by. “Feels a lot less like a horror film in here now.”

Jane glares at him. “Behave.”

“If you want to date terrifying creatures burped up by the Time Vortex, that is entirely your prerogative! Now what the hell are you up to?” O asks.

“We’ve been going about this all wrong. We’ve been doing it the hard way!” Jane taps her earpiece. “Donna?”

“_I already know. I’m really not happy about you lot going in there at all, but I’d be even less happy about being eaten,_” Donna says. “_I’ll mind the shop, the shop being the whiny lot out here who think it’d be a lark to deal with swarms of giant, razor-armed spider centaurs. Don’t you go off and get eaten, either,” she adds. “That’d just be embarrassing at this point._”

“_You lot be careful,_” Wilf adds, his voice a bit wobbly. Israfil is paying so much attention to Crowley that he only now realizes he missed a few minutes; Raguel, Saraquel, Lucy, Ba‘al, Gabriel, and Michael are all aboard the ship. “_You need to come back out of there. An awful lot of us would be disappointed if you didn’t._”

“Coming back is definitely the plan,” the Doctor says, giving Jane a raised eyebrow. “It is, isn’t it?”

“Yep!” Jane snaps her fingers and the TARDIS doors shut. “Love that trick.”

“Right, so, how are we doing this without the fwoosh again?” O asks. He would sound a bit calmer if he weren’t speaking through clenched teeth.

“We’re going in sideways,” Jane says, which…doesn’t actually answer the question.

“Sideways, how?” John asks, but he’s paying rapt attention. If Israfil recalls correctly, Jane mentioned he’d already figured out that trick with opening and closing his ship’s doors, so he’s a bit more attuned to her thoughts than his younger self.

“This model of TARDIS can’t cross dimensional barriers, which is a shame, but she’s mine, so I don’t care that she can’t do it,” Jane says in a rush. “But we don’t need to. See, there’s a barrier to the ethereal dimension, too. Crowley described how there are buffers in the way, so going through that barrier isn’t like slamming face-first into concrete.” Jane pauses and gives O and her other selves an expectant look. “Come on, then! We’re clever! Figure it out!”

“Buffers,” John repeats, and then his eyes widen before he grins. “Buffers! That’s how it’s sideways!”

O stares at them. “We could just ride along an already-existing protective layer of reality. Why did we spend the entire sodding night doing maths?”

“Oh, please. You love doing maths. Besides, you were out of practice,” Jane says to him. O looks to be on the verge of exploding, but then Jane pulls a lever on the console. “Might wanna hold onto something,” she suggests. John has already caught on to the how, and probably the where; he stands next to her, dialing in something, somehow, with gadgetry that makes no bloody sense at all.

Then everything in the ship turns sideways.

Israfil plants his staff and refuses to bend to gravity’s will. His siblings, Lucy, and Ba‘al all do the same, either following his example or remembering that their own relationship to gravity is subjective. John and Jane have both managed to keep their footing and are laughing like lunatics. O is clinging grimly to the console, still reaching up to pilot the ship, and muttering unflattering things under his breath. The youngest Doctor has a wide grin on his face, letting gravity pull him towards the wall while holding on with one hand, helping to guide the ship with the other.

_Crowley deserves you_, Israfil thinks again, fond humor mixed with nervous dread. _And I’m so glad of it._

Gabriel is looking around the ship, an expression of utter fascination on his face that has been so long missing that it makes Israfil’s heart ache. “We’re literally sliding along the buffers—no, we’re within the layer of buffers. This ship is gliding along the dimensional barrier!”

“I know! Isn’t it great?” Jane asks, grinning.

“All right. I’ll admit it. This is one of the coolest things you’ve ever done.” The smile on O’s face is thin, but also edged with manic delight.

Israfil suddenly sinks to his knees, nearly losing his grip on his staff and his avoidance of gravity. “Ow—ow, fuck, fuck, fuck that hurts—”

“Israfil?” Ba‘al is calling his name. Possibly they have been for a few seconds, but Israfil blanked out for a moment. “Speak to me.”

“Sorry, I haven’t felt that in a while, and it hurts—bloody hell, right in the kidneys? That’s rude!” Israfil clenches his jaw and tries to stand, but needs Ba‘al’s help to manage it.

“I smell hell-forged iron,” Lucy says in a sudden flat, angry tone. Recognition. “The demon hiding in London.”

“And an angel.” Michael meets Lucy’s gaze with perfect understanding. “Uriel was still helping others to sort through the ranks. We don’t know who the angel could be.”

Israfil feels Ba‘al’s delicate hands brush across his back, over his kidneys. They hiss in a breath when they feel the echo of how Crowley is injured. Being stabbed by hell-forged iron isn’t nearly the same thing as being confined by it, but it still—no.

_No. No, no, no, please, Father, don’t let that happen. _

“I have to go help,” Israfil gasps out. He leaves just enough of a tether behind to find his way back to his own corporation. The last physical thing he feels is his body slumping against Ba‘al like a falling serpent.

* * * *

Crowley stays on the ground, sending Maghunta and Ehru back into the air. Maghunta is strong enough in Hell’s ranks to create her own hellfire, and swings a battle ax at the skeins of webbing that turns the Racnoss webs into immediate strands of fragile char. Ehru can’t conjure hellfire (nobody ever wanted to see what she would do with it) but Ehru is a hunter who understands other hunters. She does an excellent job of slaughtering the Racnoss. Niuthe can’t fly, but they can jump, because they’re the odd fuck who decided upon a grasshopper aspect. They land amid the Racnoss, swing a chain with blades on the ends that severs legs or blinds Racnoss eyes, and then leaps again before the Racnoss can kill them.

It’s bloody weird fighting with other demons. Used to be it was Crowley fighting to survive against them, not standing his ground with a trio of demonic nutters who’re _helping_ him.

Crowley dodges and flings himself up and over a Racnoss, using Aziraphale’s sword to slice open the back of one’s neck. She shrieks, but she can’t reach him, and that’s a fatal, burning wound anyway. Then he tucks his wings out of this plane and rolls beneath the next Racnoss, who does her best to stomp on him. No, not doing that, thanks.

He doesn’t count Lucy and Ba‘al as demons he’s fought with. Ba‘al had already reclaimed their name when that happened, and Lucy is a lot more neutral than she’s given credit for. Not that she’ll admit it.

Crowley stands back up and finds himself in an empty circle. The Racnoss are still everywhere, but they’re ignoring him. That’s probably a bad thing. The Racnoss don’t just change their minds. “What the hell has you lot so bloody distracted?”

Sharp pain pierces his back in two places. Fetid breath is suddenly washing over his face as someone rests their head on his shoulder. “That’d be me. _Crawly._”

“Oh. Right. Yeah.” Crowley yanks himself away, stumbling forward, before he manages to turn around. “Not-Hastur. Sure. Unless you’ve finally earned yourself a new name?”

Not-Hastur, former Duke of Hell, glares at Crowley. “I’ve been nameless for months because of you. Won’t be so nameless after I finally get rid of the Serpent of Eden, will I?”

“Could you…maybe…stop being a girl and go back to presenting as male?” Crowley manages, using the cover of his words to put out the burn of hellfire attached to the stabbing things in his back. Oh; two daggers to the kidneys. “That’s a bit much, isn’t it?” he asks, and he means Not-Hastur being female just as much as he means the kidney-stabbing.

Not-Hastur scowls. “How come you’re not dying? That’s hell-forged iron wrapped in hellfire!”

“Fuck, you’re stupid.” Crowley twists his spine—shit, that hurts!—and pulls the first dagger free. He stares at it, seeing only the faintest hint of gold in the red. Not fatal, then. Just really annoying. Then he makes the dagger vanish. “D’you really think Lucy’s going to be happy when she finds out that you went against her edict?”

“Lucy?” Not-Hastur spits in disgust. “Lucifer’s gone _soft._ So’s Beelzebub! Maybe it’s time Hell had leadership that wasn’t so hung up on hanging about with angels!”

Crowley twists in the other direction—fuckfuckfuck—and yanks the other dagger out of his sodding kidney. “Wow, I dare you to say that to Lucy’s face.”

“Maybe I will,” Not-Hastur says, which proves that she’s really as stupid as Crowley always thought. Dangerous, but very, very stupid. “Dunno how anyone can think you’re an archangel, not when you’re still standing there after what I did.”

Crowley stares at Not-Hastur in disbelief, and then holds up the flaming sword. “Wow, it’s been a long time since you’ve seen the real thing, hasn’t it?”

“S’just fire,” Not-Hastur retorts. “Fancy fire, is all.” Then she grins, showing off blackened teeth. “Sides, if I can’t get my revenge this way, I have a backup plan. Revenge isn’t proper if you haven’t twisted the knife.”

“Hard to use a backup plan if you’re too dead for it,” Crowley says, tightening his grip on the sword. Right, done with this, done with Not-Hastur—

Crowley has no warning. He senses a flicker of angelic surprise, and then pain tears through his heart. Betrayal. Agony. Shock.

The despair that follows makes Crowley feel hollow. “No.”

Not-Hastur smiles, smug and vile and at that moment, _so_ _very_ _hated_. “Told you, Crawly. Backup plan.”

Crowley bares his teeth at the demon. “I’ll be back for you,” he promises, and then miracles himself back to the hotel.


	39. Hope is the thing with Feathers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Because I could not stop for Death –  
He kindly stopped for me."  
-Emily Dickenson  
10th December 1830 - 15th March 1886

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cheer-read by @norcumii and beta'd only by my anxiety-ridden ass.

When another human-looking being shows up in a flash of light, dressed in a pale suit, Lils’s first feeling is relief. They need backup, and another angel-sort is perfect for that.

Then it registers that the new bloke is standing behind Aziraphale, and the only weapon he’s holding is a dark-bladed dagger. Lils lifts her rifle, Torchwood training kicking in that screams _Threat Threat Threat!_

The being, angel, whoever the fuck he is—he’s faster. Lils sees Aziraphale’s eyes widen in sudden awareness of the threat before he lets out a stunned gasp.

Lils is already squeezing the trigger. Her rifle lets out a growling burst, releasing bullets that strikes true and nails the new bastard in the shoulder. He stumbles back, the black dagger now gold and red with Aziraphale’s blood.

“Keep…keep firing, dear,” Aziraphale orders softly, a hint of red on his lips. “Disable—”

Lils doesn’t need to hear anything else. She fills the literal backstabbing bastard’s arms and legs with so much lead, he’d need a crane to lift them. He falls down, pale grey eyes wide and shocked in an equally pale face. If Aziraphale hadn’t ordered her to disable him, she’d be shooting out those eyes and destroying that mop of curly grey hair on his head.

“What the fuck just happened?” Granger yells. “Aziraphale! Are you all right?”

Lils watches Aziraphale rest his hand on his chest, half-bent over. The bow drops from his other hand; it vanishes, and so does the quiver. Then Aziraphale says, “I’m afraid not,” and topples backwards.

Lils shouts out nonsensical denial and runs for him, but Crowley gets there first. He literally appears, the same way the other bastard had, catching Aziraphale before he can fall.

“Oh, fuck, angel. What’d you off and do to yourself now?” Crowley asks as Lils takes up position right next to them. One commanding officer is down and one is most _definitely_ distracted. It’s now her job to keep them safe.

Aziraphale makes a horrible sound. Fluid in the lungs. “Ris…Rizophale.”

“Rizophale?” Lils watches Crowley’s head swing in the direction of Lils’s lead-filled target. “What the fuck is he doing here? Why the fuck—no, wait, I don’t care, he can just lie there and be fucking miserable.”

“We’ve got this,” Kierto Toth tells Lils, adjusting some setting on his weird maybe-ray-gun. “Disintegration is really not my preference, but needs must and all that shit. Look after them.”

“Right,” Lils replies, and decides she’s just going to ignore that blatant breaking of one of the alien immigration laws. Time and place, and it’s not like it’s not justified right now.

Lils turns back to Crowley and Aziraphale. Crowley is holding Aziraphale in his lap, his bronzed black wings spread and his glasses thrown aside. _Oh, fuck,_ she think. Crowley looks like someone just yanked out his heart, tossed it onto the floor, and stomped on it.

“I’m so sorry, my dear,” Aziraphale whispers.

“Shut up, shut up, shut the entire Heaven up,” Crowley retorts, his left hand shaking as he rests it on Aziraphale’s chest. His other hand is beneath Aziraphale, right where the dagger wound should be. “Not your fault, okay? Just—just be quiet and let me look.”

Aziraphale smiles. “I’m a warrior, dear. I know it’s a fatal wound. I can feel it.”

Crowley briefly shuts his eyes shut before opening them again. “You are so stubborn. D’ya know that? So. Bloody. Stubborn.” He takes a breath. “And it’s not fatal, because you’ve got me, all right?”

Lils bites her lip and keeps her rifle steady. Kierto Toth is at her back. This is her job right now, even if she’s possibly going to cry her eyes out later.

“It’s…not?” Aziraphale sounds faint, but his eyes are so expressive and blue. It’s easy to see the surprise. “Not fatal?”

“No, it’s…it could be. Easily. Fucking hell-forged iron.” Crowley’s eyes are shining and damp when he meets Aziraphale’s gaze. His lip trembles when he rasps out, “But I have to discorporate you. I can’t fix—the corporation’s in the way. I need _you_-you.”

_Oh, God._ Lils has been in London all weekend. She’s listened to enough Celestial chatter to know what discorporation means.

Aziraphale stares at Crowley before he swallows. “Will it—will it hurt?”

“Fuck.” Crowley’s eyes start spilling golden tears. “Oh, fuck. No, angel. It won’t hurt. You—you won’t even notice. I just need you to focus on staying right here. Don’t try to dart off Upstairs. Right? Stay here. Stay with me.”

Aziraphale reaches up and wipes Crowley’s cheek dry with unsteady fingers. “Promise I won’t go anywhere,” he says, and closes his eyes.

Lils feels her blood turn to ice when Crowley lets out a terrible wail. Then Aziraphale’s body is crumbling into nothing, leaving behind little flecks of white glitter and pale, fire-edged ash that looks like burnt paper.

Crowley grits his teeth and pulls his arms to his chest, like he’s cradling something precious. It takes Lils a teary-eyed moment to make it out. Something gold is moving in the circle of Crowley’s arms, but it has black cracks and stark red lines that look like burns. One of Crowley’s hands is slick with blood that is mostly a pale, silvery gold.

“What’s going on back there?” O’Riley yells.

“Shut up!” Lils orders, because this isn’t the sort of thing you interrupt. She rates a bit higher on the sensitivity scale than standard Torchwood, and she can feel that Aziraphale is still here. Makes the discorporation bit less distressing, but Crowley—whatever it is he’s doing to heal Aziraphale, he’s having to fight for it.

_Hell-forged iron_, Lils thinks. _Hell-forged iron used to stab an angel in the heart. Maybe the heart of their physical body is also their core? Then that Rizophale bastard was trying to…to murder…_

Rizophale nearly ends up with more lead in his limbs. Lils isn’t going to be letting that bastard get away, even if the best she can do is lock him in a Torchwood cell and see to it that he’s kept there until the Earth is eaten by the sun.

Crowley lets out another shriek. Lils locks her eyes onto that golden glow and watches as the burns vanish. The black lines, the cracks, don’t want to give it up, but Crowley is a stubborn prick. His eyes are squeezed shut, head thrown back to bare teeth with too-long incisors, the cords on his neck standing out.

Those black cracks don’t stand a chance. Crowley makes it so that cradled golden essence is whole again.

Then Lils blinks away a sharp flash of golden light, dark spots dancing across her vision. Crowley slumps in place, wings drooping in misery. The ball of energy is gone, as is that feeling in Lils’s head that was distinctly Aziraphale.

“Is he—is Aziraphale okay?” Lils asks tentatively.

Crowley opens his eyes. They’re entirely gold instead of human-looking, but that doesn’t hide how bloody terrified he is. “I don’t know,” he says, his voice still a wreck. “I won’t—I won’t know for certain if it worked until I can go…” He gestures vaguely upwards with his blood-covered hand. “Y’know.”

Lils will take what reassurance she can get. It’s all but a Torchwood byline. “What about that bastard over there? What should we do with him?”

Crowley’s head turns in an impossibly smooth way that reminds Lils of a snake about to strike. “Yeah. Him.” He stands up, slow and grimacing, like he hurts all over. “Let’s find out what the fuck’s going on.”

Lils keeps her weapon trained on Rizophale as they approach. He’s been trying to heal himself, but doesn’t seem to understand that you have to take bullets out of the wounds before you patch them up. Good.

“Haven’t seen you in a long time. Got from Aziraphale when he was incorporeal that he hasn’t seen you in centuries as long as you discount the Purgatory simulations. Which, I’m not so sure I should.” Crowley plants his boot on Rizophale’s chest when the other angel starts trying to move backwards. “Stay put. Let’s find out what the hell is wrong with your head.”

Crowley lifts his hand and his fingers flicker in the air, like he’s turning pages in a book. “You wanted a war that badly,” he murmurs, eyebrows furrowing as his eyes narrow to angry golden slits. “You wanted a war so badly that you’d disobey Michael and God Herself, try to get your platoon to fight anyway even when ordered to stand down…revenge? You wanted—wow, you must really hate someone Downstairs.”

“Revenge against _Aziraphale?_” Lils asks in disbelief.

“Apparently.” Crowley sounds calm, but his expression has turned to pure, cold fury. “You decided the best way to handle how pissed off you are was to ally with a demon and get revenge against the two who stopped the Apocalypse. Right. That’s stupid, since we did almost fuck-all aside from wanting it stopped. Glad you didn’t go after Adam. He’d have decided you were trying to hurt his friends and turned you inside out. You should’ve gotten out more over the last few centuries, Riz.”

Crowley puts more of his weight onto Rizophale’s chest, making the bastard grimace. “Even Michael and Gabriel have figured out that they’ve been Upstairs too long, forgotten too much. See, this planet is _my_ dominion, and I was made to judge others who can no longer judge themselves, so…”

When Crowley snaps his fingers, something about Rizophale seems to blur for a moment. It’s not just her eyes, but it’s in Lils’s head, too. Then the blur is gone. Rizophale is still lying there, looking the same, but he doesn’t feel…he doesn’t feel like much of anything, really.

“Here’s my judgment, Rizophale of the lesser sphere, archangel of Heaven: you’re not an archangel anymore,” Crowley announces in a flat voice. “You can choose to be anything you want, but you’ll never be an archangel again.”

Rizophale glares at Crowley in utter hatred. Then he screams and vanishes in a burst of black ash.

Lils nearly jerks back in shock. “What the fuck just happened?” That looked like discorporation, but it’s sort of greasy and wrong.

Crowley sneers at the spot where Rizophale was laying. “He could’ve chosen anything. I left it his choice. Rizophale could have stayed as he was. He could even have chosen to be a fucking aardvark, but instead, the tit chose to Fall.”

Lils feels her jaw unhinge in surprise. “He chose to be…well, a demon?”

“Stupid twat.” Crowley sighs. “Hope Mum doesn’t get too upset about that.”

“You’re bleeding!” Lils yelps as she notices the gold tinge to the back of Crowley’s jacket, which is wet with what has to be blood.

“Yeah?” Crowley turns his head and looks down his back at his own waist. Lils’s neck hurts just from watching. “Huh. Good.”

“Good?”

“Yeah. Gives me an idea. First, though…” Crowley picks up something left behind in the pile of ash that used to be Rizophale’s corporation. The green amulet makes Lils’s head hurt, so she stops looking at it. “Yeah, I could definitely use this. You lot go back to holding the stairs. Help is almost here. Just a few more minutes. All right?”

“Yes, sir,” Lils replies, but Crowley’s usual flinch about ranking is gone. Then he is, too, disappearing without even a hint of light.

“Now what?” Jasmine calls.

Lils hefts her rifle and turns around, ignoring the tears on her face. “Now we keep firing. He said help will be here in a few minutes, and I believe him!”

* * * *

Crowley finds Not-Hastur easily enough. The numb fuck is still standing where Crowley left him, arms crossed as she sneers at the Racnoss that are ignoring her. The sneer widens when Ehru lets out a pained shriek. Crowley checks on her, but it was a superficial wound, and Ehru is already killing the Racnoss who tagged her.

“Fallen angel Daniethael. Not-Hastur, not-Duke of anything, Nameless One, denizen of Hell.”

Not-Hastur turns around and smiles, bleeding vileness and victory. “How’d you like my backup plan, Crawly?”

Crowley feels like a stiff breeze could blow him away. He feels like his entire being is singing with power.

He hurts so much. He feels shattered.

“You’ve done a lot to me over the millennia.” Crowley steps forward until he’s in touching range of the demon. “No rhyme, no reason. Just cruelty because you could. You hate. You Fell willingly. The Fall and the fire burnt so many feathers from your wings. In Hell, you found a blade and severed what remained of your wings from your back because you loathed them so much.”

Not-Hastur scowls. “Shut up.”

“Not in the mood.” The light around them changes as Crowley’s hands ignite with the same fire that lit Aziraphale’s sword. A little voice in his head notes that he sort of forgot about the sword when he went back to Aziraphale, when he arrived to find a nightmare waiting for him.

Crowley has no idea where the sword is now. He doesn’t need it, but he should give it back to Aziraphale.

Please let him be able to give it back.

“You should’ve listened to Lucy, Nameless One.” Crowley rushes forward and grips Not-Hastur’s shoulders before she can realize his intent. Her sneer intensifies before it changes, turning into a shriek.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”

Crowley watches the golden-white fire spread across Not-Hastur’s shoulders, down her arms, and up into her white hair. “Defending my realm. Maybe avenging it, but I hope not. See, Aziraphale lives here. He lives in my dominion. He is mine to protect, just like everything else on this planet.”

“CRAWLY!”

Crowley lets go of Not-Hastur. He doesn’t need to hold on any longer for the fire to do its job. “You’ve endangered my dominion for the last time. Ligur got off easy, by the way. Holy fire’s the worse way to go.”

He’s not certain Not-Hastur can hear him anymore. The shrieking goes on forever until the holy fire burns itself out, when nothing remains for it to destroy.

There are no ashes to mark where Not-Hastur died. There isn’t anything at all. Crowley should’ve asked the fire not to burn the amulet the demon must’ve had to keep the Racnoss away. Too late now.

Crowley looks down the street. The closest Racnoss have already turned in his direction, literally drooling.

They can smell his blood. Bleeding makes the scent of Huon particles that much stronger.

He nudges the wind’s direction until he’s upwind of the hotel. More Racnoss begin scuttling his way as their bloodlust spreads.

“_Whatever you are doing, it is making it easier to slay the Racnoss,_” Maghunta says through the comm. “_They are so busy staring at you that they do not notice our approach._”

“Are they leaving the hotel roof?” Crowley asks.

“_Some. Not all._”

“Some is better than none.” Crowley stands his ground as the Racnoss surge closer. He hopes this amulet is worth the demonic energy it’s built from.

Niuthe lands beside Crowley in a leap that clears three screeching Racnoss, hellfire blazing from the blades at the end of their chains. Maghunta must’ve lit them for them. “Well? Are you just going to stand there like a lump, or are you going to kill them?”

“Oh. Yeah. There’s a thought.” Crowley calls forth the bow and quiver that Aziraphale dropped, snagging an arrow. “Why should my day end with killing Not-Hastur, anyway?”

“Just don’t do that to me,” Niuthe mutters, their voice like the flutter of a grasshopper fleeing from a garden path. “That’s a shit way to die, Crowley.”

Crowley looses an arrow and nails the closest Racnoss in the eye. “Switch to a weapon that you can throw. I’ve got an amulet stolen from an idiot that keeps the Racnoss away. Should do, anyway. It’s working so far. Besides, you keep behaving yourself, we don’t have a problem.”

Niuthe grumbles about it, but turns their burning blades into an endless series of flaming throwing knives. “Hope you’re right. Eaten by Racnoss is also a shit way to go.”

The Racnoss have them surrounded now. They’re climbing on top of each other, living and dead bodies stacking up like they’re pressing against a dome. Crowley looses another arrow. “Stop whinging. I just made it easier for us to fucking kill them.”

Then Crowley feels Israfil join him, and he’s no longer alone in his head. His brother’s presence is so soothing that he nearly drops his bow. _Israfil?_ he asks in disbelief.

_What the fuck happened?_ Israfil sounds panicked. _You had to—oh, God. Did it work?_

_Why do people keep asking me that?_ Crowley grits his teeth and lets another arrow fly. If there is a gossipy blue box arriving at the hotel, he can’t hear it over the noise of all the fucking Racnoss. _I don’t know!_

_I’ll find out,_ Israfil promises. _Do you need me to stay?_

Crowley nearly chokes on a sob before he shoves it right back down his throat. _No. You’ll be needed to toss the Racnoss out of the way at the hotel. Help the others clear the path. Those humans and our alien chef need rescuing._

_All right._ He can sense Israfil’s reluctance. _We’ll come to get you when they’re safe._

_Good to know,_ Crowley says, but right now, he’s busy. He is the big, shiny, Huon particle blood-soaked lure that’s attracted the majority of the Racnoss away from the hotel.

“If we die, I’m blaming you,” Niuthe says as they dispatch another Racnoss.

Crowley’s next arrow scrapes along a Racnoss exoskeleton when Israfil’s presence is suddenly gone. “Yeah, that’s fair.”

* * * *

Ba‘al keeps Israfil upright, unspilled, as the time ship abruptly rightens itself. The floor is pulling them down again, and they can feel it—they are in London. The journey did not last five minutes, perhaps only two, but when Israfil departed, it felt as if it took even longer to arrive.

Israfil startles Ba‘al when he sucks in a sudden breath, the full strength of his presence returning. “Oh, fuck, none of that is good.”

Ba‘al is glad that Israfil doesn’t need their assistance to stand, though it means he has performed no great miracles. They’re in a time ship traveling along a dimensional buffer; Israfil must have missed what he thought Crowley needed assistance with.

“Looking for a good landing spot that isn’t directly on a Racnoss’s head,” the middle Time Lord says, watching something on a screen that seems to be visible only for the ship’s pilots.

“Land on them anyway. It isn’t as if we’re here to make nice with them,” O says in annoyance.

Lucifer lets out a sudden, displeased noise. “I am lacking a demon from my ranks. I also have a new one. Explain this, Israfil.”

Israfil scowls at her. “I don’t know yet, Crowley was busy, but Aziraphale—”

“I can’t sense Aziraphale,” Michael blurts out in surprise.

Ba‘al raises both eyebrows. Aziraphale is not easy to discorporate. Other demons aside from Crowley have made the attempt. Crowley is the only one who ever succeeded, and Ba‘al suspects even that was part of their “Arrangement,” not a lack of skill on Aziraphale’s part. “Has the Principality returned to Heaven?”

“I—” Israfil tilts his head upwards. “I can’t tell. I’ll have to go Upstairs to know for certain.”

“It was only a discorporation. There should be no doubt.” Gabriel’s form briefly flickers, his suit returned to the leather and gold-edged armor he arrived in. “Israfil?”

Israfil is either still speaking to Crowley, or sorting through what they shared with each other during that brief contact. “Hold on, I’ve got it—oh. Oh, fuck. Lucy, you should possibly and truly thank God right now that Crowley knows you had nothing to do with this, because if he thought otherwise, he’d wage war on Hell and obliterate anything that got in his way. Hell included.”

“One of mine came here and attempted to kill the Principality Aziraphale?” Lucy scowls. “They know he is under the protection of Healers, and not to be touched!”

“Not…not actually certain it was a demon,” Israfil mutters. “But: hell-forged iron blade in an angel’s heart, Lucifer.”

Ba‘al goes still, feeling as if the breath has been kicked from their lungs. “That is not discorporation. There is no discorporation from such an injury. It is fatal.” Had they not once witnessed a similar death? Blades of holy fire to the heart cause the same immediate death.

“Quite often, yes.” Israfil bares his teeth and reveals elongated incisors. “But if you know what you’re doing, or you’re simply insane, it can be fixed. You just have to get the corporation out of the way, first.”

Ba‘al notices the various Time Lord expressions they earn when all of them fall silent. Their hands are shaking. They are glad the breath was already gone from their lungs.

Aziraphale had not hesitated to welcome Ba‘al, giving them an introduction to chocolate-flavored coffee when Israfil brought Ba‘al to Crowley’s flat that first time. He was and is always polite to them, and often…often, Aziraphale has also been kind. He has a very good sense for knowing when Ba‘al will tolerate kindness, and when it will make them angry.

Whoever tried to kill the Principality forced Crowley to discorporate the one he loves. This might be the first thing Ba‘al has ever encountered that they consider to be unforgivable.

“Oh, good God,” Raguel finally whispers, and rests her hand over her mouth.

“Soooo, if I’m getting this right: one of your people, and one of your people,” O points at Lucy, then at Michael, “teamed up and decided they wanted these other two Celestials to become very dead, given what the ginger was saying about kidneys and stabbings. So what? Why is anyone worried about a single pissy Celestial?”

Lucifer turns the full might of her burning gaze onto the Timelord O, who is not foolish enough to shrink back. “You very young and foolish Time Lord. Your imagination, the so-called great feats you are responsible for, are _pathetic_ in comparison to what Crowley is capable of.”

Ba‘al finds it briefly amusing that no version of Crowley’s offspring seems surprised by Lucifer’s words. They wonder what it is the Doctor has found themself easily capable of. Also intriguing is that, in spite of their potential deeds, their soul is not marked for Hell.

On the other hand, if O were to die right at this moment, he would not enjoy his afterlife. Or perhaps he would. Some souls are very odd that way. Perhaps Heaven would be the better idea; O would find it to be torture.

“Young?” O sputters. “I am not—”

“Shut up!” Israfil snaps. “Land this thing,” he orders the Doctors standing at the console. “Right now!”

“Well, you’re in luck, because…” The eldest version of the Doctor frowns and peers at one of the invisible screens. “The Racnoss are leaving that hotel roof. Not all of them, but enough to give us some wiggle room.”

“Down we go, then,” the middle Doctor says, sharing a look with his youngest self. Ba‘al feels their corporation’s stomach shift unhappily when the ship drops. It does not crash, or land in a way that makes them feel unbalanced, but the deep bass thud is not reassuring this time.

“Hold on, you lot. Don’t go rushin’ for the door just yet.” The eldest Doctor is hurrying around the console at a run, with her younger selves wisely staying out of the way. “My girl’s got shields, and they’re flexible. I’m giving us a tunnel right to those broken doors. Once it’s up, the Racnoss won’t get through. Not when they’re so distracted by whatever’s going on down on the street.”

“That would be my idiot brother,” Israfil snaps. “And—Niuthe,” he says after a pause.

“Lucy, do you know the identity of the newly Fallen?” Michael asks.

Lucifer shakes her head. “You and I both know that the Fallen tend to forget their names, and this one…this one hates. This one rejects. We will need to learn their identity from Crowley, or wait for Uriel to discover who is missing from Heaven.”

“Doctor—any of you can answer this, I suppose,” Gabriel says when all three glance at him in expectation. “Can we depart through those shields, or are they walls?”

“Can’t get in, but getting out? Not a problem,” the youngest one replies.

The eldest purses her lips. “If the rest of you go fetch everyone, I can make the shields think only the Racnoss have to be kept out. Then it won’t matter. Five minutes, tops.”

“Three minutes, because I am _not_ going out there,” O insists.

“Excellent.” Michael strides for the ship’s doors. Gabriel and Lucifer are right behind her. Ba‘al summons their halberd and follows Israfil, trying to cope with the odd sensation of being flanked by Saraquel and Raguel; both have already called forth their divine weapons. The youngest and middle Doctor are last, armed with nothing more than their minds and the little sonic device that grants everyone headaches.

_At least they are debilitating headaches_, Ba‘al allows. The Racnoss do not like that sort of pain, either.

* * * *

Michael raises her sword and immediately engages the Racnoss on the roof. Gabriel isn’t certain if she places no faith in the shields, despite their clear path, or if she simply wants to rid the building’s rooftop of any perceived threats. He doesn’t blame her for wanting that. The Racnoss still chill his blood, even after all these eons…and he is about to do something that evokes true fright.

He promised, though. He vowed it.

Lucifer draws her sword and ignites it with burning hellfire. “I’ll see to dispatching the webs, just in case the shields can be overcome by the Racnoss. Maghunta! You will join me!”

“_I am already waiting for you, my Prince_,” Maghunta responds, sounding…winded. Tired, perhaps. Even in Celestial terms, it’s been a very long weekend, and demons are of the same stock as angels.

Gabriel looks back just as Israfil swings his staff through a humming barrier of energy and bashes a Racnoss in the face. Passing through the energy barrier won’t pose a difficulty, then.

“Be careful,” Saraquel tells him, his daggers clenched in his hands. “Go get our little brother.”

Gabriel nods, because Saraquel has always understood his intentions, even when Saraquel firmly believed (truthfully) that Gabriel’s intentions were wrong. “I will.” Then he runs, evading the Racnoss on that side of the rooftop before he leaps from the edge. Several of the Racnoss follow him, forgetting in their bloodlust that they can't fly.

He turns his head back to look as the wind carries him away from the hotel. Some of the Racnoss who followed caught themselves on remaining webs. Others landed rather messily on the street. Hopefully the stains will wash out, or the humans might have to remove the road and build a new one.

The Racnoss are flocking to a dome-shaped construct at the end of the street. Many of the Racnoss are dead, trampled or killed—Gabriel spies Crowley’s arrows protruding from a number of eyes, while knives still flicker with hellfire in a few others.

Gabriel circles the dome and finds that there is no place to dive through, not without risking death from a Racnoss’s razor-sharp arms. He can sense Crowley within, though, along with a demonic presence. He miracles himself to their side, pulling in his wings even as he holds up his sword to block the knife thrown his way.

“Oh, shit! Sorry about that!” the demon yells, and then throws another knife at a Racnoss.

Gabriel blinks a few times. “It’s fine,” he decides. He would feel paranoid right now, too. There is almost no sign of daylight within the dome, the Racnoss have piled on it so thickly.

There is nothing to mark what holds them back. “Crowley?”

“You’re mental, Gabriel,” Crowley says, loosing an arrow that flies true and kills another Racnoss. His voice is too flat, too harsh. Black, rainbow-edged scales are shining on his hands and along the sharp planes of his face; dark red scales protect the vulnerable line of his throat. “You shouldn’t have hopped in here, especially with a sword. Not exactly a distance weapon, is it?”

“Maybe it won’t need to be. Besides, I promised that I would come for you. Again!” Gabriel retorts, trying not to stare at his brother’s armored skin. It’s been a _very_ long time since he’s seen Zaherael do such a thing.

“Like this is my fault.” Crowley does not stop loosing arrows, just as the demon does not stop flinging flaming daggers. “Wait, actually, it sort of is, but I’m not sorry.”

“I didn’t think you would be.” Gabriel pauses. “I wouldn’t expect you to be, either.”

That causes Crowley to falter, to look at him with startled golden eyes. “Oh. Is there a plan?”

“Of course there’s a plan!” Gabriel is good at plans, at least when he isn’t planning to destroy parts of Creation. “The others are retrieving the humans from the hotel. They’ll board your offspring’s time ship while Michael and Israfil keep the Racnoss from getting too close to their shielded path. Once that’s done, we’ll retreat back to the ship and leave London.”

“Sounds too simple. Sounds like shit can go wrong,” Crowley mutters.

Gabriel shakes his head. Not today. “What’s keeping the Racnoss at bay?”

Crowley retrieves a strange and blatantly demonic green amulet from his jacket pocket. “This is how the other two idiots were hiding from us, and from the Racnoss. It’s why I’m not moving from this spot. Means the radius of the whatever the fuck this is doesn’t change.”

“Right.” Gabriel ignites his sword. “Please continue not to move. It might not be easy, but nothing will stop me from using a sword against them when they’re trapped on the other side of a demonic wall. When the others inform us that the hotel is empty, we’ll leave, but for now, this distraction is useful.”

“Lord Crowley was right. You really are mental,” the demon comments.

Crowley’s mouth settles into a grim line, but he doesn’t refute the title. Gabriel knows that Lucy only made certain the ancient title was known to everyone so there would be neutrality between Heaven, the Healer who held dominion over the Earth, and Hell, but…but he worries.

He worries he wouldn’t recognize his brother if he were to Fall again. He stared the demon Crowley in the face and _he did not know_.

Gabriel uses his wings to lift himself from the ground, ventures close to the edge of that magical wall, and tears through the first line of Racnoss. He finds himself praying to their Father that Aziraphale is whole, because he has no wish to witness the alternative.

* * * *

Linda lowers her rifle and holds up her hand, signaling a cease-fire. The Racnoss pushed them back to the third choke-point, but after that, the overwhelming numbers of the great big horrors had started to slack off. Then it was just one or two at a time daring the stairs, making it easier to kill them. Or for Kierto Toth to disintegrate them. Linda doesn’t want to know why a chef has a device that can disintegrate things. It just seems safer that way.

“Did they stop?” Sergeant Pugh asks, but doesn’t lower his rifle. His eyes and hands remained steady the entire time he stood opposite her on the stairs, and Linda is so damned proud of him.

“I don’t hear anything,” Sergeant Podder says. “You lot?”

Agent Johnson sounds hopeful. “You don’t think we ran out of Racnoss, do you?”

“I heard a new sound before the Racnoss stopped,” Kierto Toth says. “Perhaps—”

“Oi, you lot down there! You’re not going to shoot at us if we come in, are you?”

O’Riley lets out a broken laugh as Linda tries not to cry. She’d believed they would be saved, but she had still been so afraid for herself, for her soldiers, and for the children hiding in a walk-in refrigerator.

“No, we won’t. We don’t shoot rescuers,” Agent Johnson shouts. “Who’re you?”

A skinny bloke in a brown pinstripe suit peers around the choke point. He looks disturbingly like Crowley if their Celestial had gone brunette instead of ginger. “I’m the Doctor. Nice to meet you!”

“Oh, fuck me,” Agent Johnson whispers. “It’s him!”

“Us, actually,” another man says, popping out from behind the Doctor. “He’s the two-point-oh version of me, I’m one-point-oh, and back in the TARDIS is God-knows-which-point-oh.”

“I’ve heard weirder,” Sergeant Podder decides. “Glad to meet you, even if there’s more than one of you.”

“Tell me there’s more than one of you,” O’Riley begs. “Because mate, I’m so ready to be out of this city.”

Linda raises an eyebrow at the diminutive brunette with pale skin and blue-grey eyes that walks down the stairs behind the two Doctors, a massive halberd easily held in her hands. Their hands? His? Bugger, Linda can’t tell. Not that it matters so much. “Celestial?”

The new one tilts their head. “Close enough. I am Ba‘al.”

“Oh, it’s you! I’ve been wondering what you look like. Love your sense of humor,” Sergeant Pugh declares.

Ba‘al blinks once, expression unreadable. “Thank…thank you. Israfil and Michael remain on the roof, keeping the Racnoss away from an energy tunnel meant to shield us from harm. Gabriel is assisting Crowley and another of our allies on the ground. Lucy and Maghunta are clearing the webs to further slow the Racnoss.” They tilt their head as two new people appear. “This is Saraquel, with the daggers, and Raguel, with the swords. We are here to retrieve the humans.”

“And the alien,” the skinny Doctor adds when Kierto Toth coughs, loudly, in indignance. “We should probably hurry.”

Linda slings her rifle over her shoulder. “Right, then. Sergeant Pugh, Kierto Toth, keep a guard on the stairs, just in case. The rest of you, come with me. It’s time to raid the fridge.”

* * * *

Allison tenses when the door to the fridge is pounded on, her arms instinctively tightening around both Adrian and baby Phoenix. She hopes it isn’t the Racnoss, prays that it isn’t—

“Hello, you lot!”

That’s not a Racnoss. They don’t sound scared. Thank God.

The fridge door opens, revealing Captain Granger, Corporeal O’Riley, Sergeant Podder, Agent Johnson, and several other…aliens. Beings. No, angels, because they remind her of Crowley and Aziraphale. One looks like he fell out of a Renaissance painting, too perfect to be real; one is female and possibly meant to have Asian features, the impression emphasized by the twin katanas she holds; one is not presenting as any gender in particular, but has a halberd larger than they are. The other two are grinning, a suited man who looks a great deal like Crowley, and a man in a leather jacket who still manages to remind her of Crowley, though they look nothing alike.

“How would you like to get out of here?” Captain Granger asks them all, grinning like it’s Christmas morning.

Allison closes her eyes, smiling in relief as Adrian cheers along with the others. Her little boy isn’t going to die here.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

* * * *

The Doctor waves people through the TARDIS’s control room, knowing that her beautiful ship has put the room they need right in front of them. “There’s a bit of a trick to getting through the big wall of purple fire,” she explains to the ones who are listening. Two of them are sullen and don’t want to hear anything that doesn’t involve escape; two of the kids are sleeping in a way that feels sort of pushed onto them. Probably a reason for that, no time to ponder it now. “This room will keep gravity in place for you lot, but gravity’s not going to be behavin’ itself out here. Best not to chance it, especially with a baby.”

A little boy tugs on the Doctor’s coat. She glances down at his solemn face, noticing that he’s holding a younger girl by the hand. Siblings, and all they have in the world is each other. It makes her hearts ache.

“Are we safe?” the little boy whispers.

The Doctor nods. “Safe as houses, especially in here. Can’t say what it’ll be like after we’re out of London, but right now? Yeah. Promise you are.”

The little boy smiles. “Thanks.”

The little girl holds up a stuffed duck that looks well-loved, and also like it’s seen a good cleaning recently. “Baker says hello.”

“Hello, Baker. Why’s he named that?” the Doctor asks.

“Because of 221B Baker Street,” Tim responds. “I like Sherlock Holmes. The books, not the telly show. We’re not allowed to watch that.”

“I like Mrs. Hudson,” the girl whispers. “But Hudson wasn’t a good name for a duck.”

“I like Baker,” the Doctor agrees. “Now, off you pop. We need to be getting a shift on, yeah?”

The Doctor turns around to find O glaring at her. “You,” he says, “are so gooey-hearted that it’s sickening. They’re just tiny, insignificant little monkeys.”

The Doctor rolls her eyes and ignores him. She has a monitor keeping an eye on the situation down the street, and it looks like a…well, like a Racnoss spider-pile. Something Crowley did really makes them want to get into that energy bubble. It’s driving them out of their minds, making them stupid about it.

Then she remembers that they’re in the same area, and the comms work. “Crowley, what are you doin’ that’s making the Racnoss act so stupid about getting into that bubble?”

“_Blood makes Huon particles easier to smell,_” Crowley replies. “_Gabriel, now you’re just showing off_.”

“_I am not!_”

“_He so is,_” a fainter voice adds, probably someone who doesn’t have a comm.

“You’re still _bleeding?_” Israfil asks in outrage as he steps aboard the ship. The last of the soldiers and the last of the Celestials are with him, so they’re almost done. “Crowley!”

“_It’s called presenting a fucking distraction, Brother!_” Crowley snarls. The Doctor tries to lean away from the comm in her own ear before realizing that was utterly pointless. “_Is anyone else standing on the street?_”

The Doctor glances up at the others, who all shake their heads except for Ba‘al. “Lucy, Maghunta, and Ehru are still in the air,” they say.

“_Good. They need to either stay up there, or join the rest of you on the rooftop._” Crowley sounds like he’s preparing for something. “_Gabriel._”

“_What?_”

“_Burn it,_” Crowley says.

“_What!_” Gabriel outright squawks, echoed by whoever is with them—right, that demon they called Niuthe.

“_You heard me. Burn it._”

* * * *

“Crowley.” Gabriel stares at Crowley in astonishment. “I haven’t—I don’t think I’ve called forth that much fire in…well, a very long time.”

Crowley glares at him. “You’ve got a fucking flaming sword, brother. You and Michael were always the best at this, and we need to clear some of this shit out of here.”

“Why?” Gabriel asks, while Niuthe trembles next to them.

“Because dead bodies are prime breeding grounds for disease, especially in warm weather,” Crowley replies, trying not to grind his teeth in frustration. “We can’t just leave a pile of dead Racnoss here. Burn everything that’s on the street around us. Besides, that will _also_ get rid of the Racnoss who are still alive!”

“Oh.” Gabriel glances down at his sword and nods. “Can you handle the results, Crowley?”

Crowley nearly throws up his hands, on the verge of screaming. “Gabriel! I wouldn’t have said it if I couldn’t handle it! Niuthe!”

“This will kill me,” Niuthe whispers in terror.

“No, it won’t, because I’m not going to let it.” Crowley yanks Niuthe closer when they just stand there like a lump. “Come here, you knob. Or are you just paying lip service to that Lord nonsense?”

Niuthe winces. “Aw, fuck,” they say, and then twitch as Crowley wraps his arms around them. “Don’t make this weirder!”

“Shut up,” Crowley snaps. “Gabriel, any fucking time now would be grand!”

Gabriel lifts his sword, and the white flame along its edge suddenly grows large enough to engulf him. Crowley wraps his wings around Niuthe, sheltering him from the storm of fire now burning around them. “Just. Hold. Still,” he orders.

Niuthe gibbers in response. Crowley has no idea what he said, but at least the demon isn’t trying to claw him to shreds.

The amulet. Crowley reaches into his jacket pocket, drops the thing onto the street, and kicks it away from the protective circle of his wings. Then he closes his eyes. He wants to bask in this fire just as much as he once basked in a column of hellfire during a botched execution last August.

He also wants to get away from it, but he ignores that impulse. It’s old, ancient habit, a fear that’s currently bloody stupid. He’s already surrounded by fire that dances along his hair, his jacket, and the outer layer of his feathers.

It almost feels like a brush along the cheek from the divine.

Then it’s over. Gabriel calls the fire back to his sword, and the air is clear.

“Oh, fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck,” Niuthe squeaks on repeat. “Oh, _fuck!_”

“Yeah, don’t really blame you for reacting like that.” Crowley glances around. Holy fire is useful for burning evil to ash, or out of existence entirely, depending on how it rates on the evil scale. There are piles of slimy-looking Racnoss ash everywhere. Not entirely evil, but definitely not a loving and huggable species.

Crowley sniffs and nearly gags. “Oh, blessed fuck. I’d forgotten about the smell!” He stops breathing before it can get any worse.

Gabriel looks slightly green. “So had I. Let’s leave, Crowley.”

“Sounds good.” Crowley snags Niuthe again before the demon can collapse. “Time to go, Grasshopper.” Gabriel miracles them all to the hotel roof, right in front of the open doors of Not-Jane’s TARDIS. Crowley can sense an energy field around them that has him looking about, trying to see it, because that feels far more useful than the roasted amulet’s weird repelling nonsense.

“Not right now, Crowley.” Gabriel points sternly at the ship.

Crowley rolls his eyes, trying to pretend he isn’t about to stumble and fall on his face. He grabs Niuthe’s arm and shoves the trembling demon in front of him as they walk up the ship’s ramp; he really doesn’t think Niuthe has enough brains left in his head to manage on his own.

Once they’re inside the ship, Lucy reclaims Niuthe, who just seems baffled to see their Prince. The demonic blessing might be a bit much, but at least Grasshopper looks less like he’s going to lose his shit after it’s done. Ehru is slathered in Racnoss blood, but otherwise looks like she just spent her day attending the most boring tea imaginable. Maghunta might look _better_ for being covered in Racnoss blood, but Crowley’s not going to say so.

“Did that burn kill them all?” Lucy asks John, who is already at the controls on this side of the TARDIS.

“No, that’d be too much to hope for,” John murmurs. “But there are certainly less of them than before.”

Not-Jane looks up from the TARDIS controls on the opposite side. “You all right?” she asks Crowley.

Crowley considers it as the TARDIS doors close behind him. “Long as I’m not hallucinating not being dead, sure. Good to go.” He tilts his head so he can catch a better glimpse of the dark-skinned, dark-haired Time Lord who’s trying to hide behind the ship’s central column of whatever-that-is. “What the fuck is wrong with your DNA?”

The Time Lord, probably the mysterious O of Spoilers, huffs in annoyance. “I was born this way, thank you.”

Crowley blinks, realizing when he does so that his eyes feel red and raw. His glasses are…somewhere that is not his face. Bollocks. Saraquel was apparently right to be that curious about Time Lords, then. Shit. “Yeah, no, I can’t handle that right now.”

“Now I know you’ve done something to yourself,” Israfil mutters, coming closer and running his hand down Crowley’s back. Crowley flinches when warm healing energy sparks over two icy spots. Those stab wounds probably hurt, but he sort of told that sensation to bugger off for a while when the burn distracted him too much.

“Crowley!” Israfil glares at him. “You didn’t need to bleed all over London, you idiot!”

“I had an entirely valid reason to bleed all over _part_ of London, thank you,” Crowley responds, which is when his knees choose to quit holding him up. Israfil catches him before he can land in an undignified heap on the floor. “Probably should’ve remembered to heal the stabbing a bit sooner, though.”

Israfil sighs and grabs the nearest column so he can lower both of them to the floor, a neat tangle of limbs instead of a disaster. “Crowley.”

“Yep, that’sss me.” Crowley closes his eyes and rests his face against Israfil’s chest, enjoying the warmth. “Don’t think it’s just the blood loss. Hell-forged iron and hellfire-ssstabbing ssstarted the fun.”

“Not to mention the effort it takes to put someone else back together.” Israfil’s hands are tracing warm patterns on his back. Crowley’s felt sluggish, his joints paining him, since, since—

Nope. Not thinking about it.

“You bring me the best messes to deal with,” Israfil says dryly. “Hold onto me, Brother. Things are about to go sideways. Literally.”

Gravity turning sideways turns out to be the last thing his corporation is willing to put up with. It’s a relief, really. Crowley’s grip on Israfil’s jacket goes slack as he passes out.

* * * *

Their arrival back at the East EEC went well, for the most part. The humans all removed themselves from the ship without difficulty, though Raguel and Saraquel claimed and have been cooing over the human infant like angels who’ve waited _far too long_ to bloody well procreate.

Israfil knows there will be some sort of minor crisis when the alien named Kierto Toth takes his first step off the TARDIS and immediately sits down hard on the ground. “Oof,” he says. “Now I’m knackered.” The soldiers make it a bit further before they all do the same thing, though in O’Riley’s case, the corporal simply passes out in an ungainly sprawl. Pugh, who feels to Israfil’s senses like he recently dealt with a horrific case of PTSD, drops to his knees and sicks up, but doesn’t collapse. Instead, he sits back on his haunches with no apparent intent to move until someone makes him.

“Heavy miracle bleed-off,” Michael says to John, who is regarding the grounded soldiers in alarm. “Crowley’s, from the feel of it.”

Israfil shifts his brother in his arms. “We did that during the war. If we knew we might be fighting longer than we could physically hold out, we’d just…nudge things. Just a bit. They’ll be fine, but someone with authority should see to it that their superiors know that this lot need to be given beds and then allowed to _sleep_ until they’re done. No disruptions, no distractions.”

“You’re the ultimate authority here, Israfil. You’re in charge of medical,” Saraquel reminds him.

“Oh. Right.” Israfil yells for the nearest minion—dammit, that works too well—who knows his face.

Nancy rolls her eyes but comes jogging over, her white jacket flying out behind her. “What are we doing with this lot, then?” she asks, waving one finger in a circle that takes in the soldiers, the alien, and Israfil’s brother.

“They need rest, mandatory, uninterrupted, no matter what their employers have to say about it,” Israfil says.

“Consider it done,” Nancy replies with a sharp nod. “I’ll have Mark run interference if I need to, or I’ll make Captain Harkness do it,” Nancy adds thoughtfully. “They’ll listen to him, and I get the bonus of watching the eye candy at work.”

Israfil shrugs; there is nothing wrong with a bit of multi-tasking. “I’m taking this idiot with me, but the baby…” he trails off, uncertain. “My brother found Phoenix in London. From what Crowley would tell me, she was abandoned in a place the Racnoss would easily have—” He can’t say it. He does have limits, and that anyone would do that to an infant, a fledgling of _any_ species, is infuriating.

Nancy gives him a look of complete understanding. “When those two are willing to hand her over, I’ll make sure she’s registered under Crowley. If your brother makes a claim, there won’t be anything in his way.”

She walks off to gather up assistants to move the soldiers before her statement catches up with his thoughts. “Wait, he’s not…oh, never mind,” Israfil mutters. Crowley has always liked children. At the very least, his brother will want the right to dictate who adopts that infant.

Israfil walks in the direction of one of the two recovery tents, which he knows will remain at half capacity through the afternoon. The quieter, the better, or the noise will wake his brother too soon. Then Israfil realizes that he has two shadows: Gabriel and Jane. “Is there something the two of you need?”

“We’re the two who fought hardest to be the elected representatives for everyone else who wants to be certain this’un is fine,” Jane says before Gabriel can answer.

“Yes, that,” Gabriel agrees. “I didn’t miss what Crowley said about hellfire on the blades that injured him.”

“If that was going to be a problem, Gabriel, it would already have killed him,” Israfil says tersely. He didn’t want to be reminded of that; he still isn’t certain what kind of damage he’s going to find on Crowley’s back when he finally gets his brother’s shirt and jacket out of the way.

Once Israfil has Crowley carefully arranged facedown on one of the medical beds, he snaps his fingers. Crowley’s jacket hangs itself near the white jackets waiting on pegs by the self-sealing door. That jacket is going to need at least two miracles to be restored, and possibly more conventional repairs performed by a tailor. Hellfire isn’t kind to fabric, either.

Crowley’s t-shirt is worse off, charred and blackened near the waist with two fairly large holes in the dark red fabric. Israfil gingerly pulls the burnt fabric out of his way, relieved that it’s not sticking to Crowley’s skin. There are two jagged wounds, one on each side of Crowley’s spine, just below his ribs.

Israfil stopped the bleeding the moment he realized it was still a concern, but the sight of these wounds makes him very, very glad that the demon who hurt his brother is already dead. “If this was a human body instead of a corporation, my brother would need new kidneys.”

“Small favors, then,” Jane says. He can sense her itching to help, but is keeping quiet about it. Gabriel is almost screaming his need to help, but Israfil is used to ignoring those sorts of mental noises.

Crowley’s intent, his insistent belief in his own acquired immunity, kept hellfire and hell-forged iron from being fatal to his corporation, but both are still toxic to Celestials. Angry red, violet, and near-black lines radiate out from the wounds, intent on spreading infection and poison. Israfil rids Crowley of that poison first, literally pulling the remnants of it out through the raw-edged wounds.

“That is fouler than I remembered,” Gabriel whispers, his eyes locked on the contained sphere of malignant intent. The lines on Crowley’s skin are already vanishing, his corporation now capable of healing on its own again. Israfil isn’t going to let this healing go the slow route, but it’s still an excellent sign of recovery.

“Get rid of that, will you?” Israfil asks Gabriel, and returns his attention to convincing tissue and muscle to heal, to re-recognize the severed parts of themselves from the cellular level upwards. He ignores the brief flash of fire as Gabriel burns that bubble of malevolence out of existence, keeping his hands on his brother’s back as the wounds finally close. For a few seconds, matching white scars mark Crowley’s skin, and then they fade away.

Jane sounds fascinated. “That healing bit is still so handy.”

Israfil notes the placement of his hands. “Was that a pun?”

“Wasn’t meant to be one. Totally claiming it, though.”

Israfil smiles. “He really does deserve you,” he murmurs, and reaches along the paths of energy that an angel uses to fill out the spaces in a corporation and claim it as their own. Crowley poured so much into saving Aziraphale that he burnt those channels. It reminds Israfil of the war, when Gabriel first channeled divine fire through his sword and felt internally frazzled, fried, for a week afterward. The first time Israfil did this to himself, pouring forth too much energy to save another, it left him aching, his head ringing. Then he forgot himself, tried to perform a small miracle before those burns healed, and landed on his face.

Crowley didn’t just draw on his restored Celestial energy to heal Aziraphale, but on his own self. That could have consequences for Aziraphale.

Or…perhaps not. Crowley didn’t feed his work with parts of his personality or his core self. He fueled that healing with some of the purest love that Israfil has ever felt outside of the Almighty Herself.

Israfil told Crowley months ago, a lifetime ago: _A sacrifice made in love? That is the sort of power that creates worlds_. He just hadn’t expected that information to be used this way.

He finds himself blinking back tears. Being a demon for thousands of years didn’t lessen or damage his brother’s vast capacity for love. If anything, Crowley’s defiance of demonic expectations expanded it, made it so much greater than what their Mother had first created the twins to be capable of feeling. Israfil finds sheltered pools of that love almost everywhere he looks within his brother’s core. Some of them are devoted to individuals: one is for Israfil alone. A different pool that feels both new and ancient is reserved for the Doctor. There is even a wellspring for the human infant he named Phoenix, though it’s accompanied by an odd swell of grief that Israfil doesn’t understand. Whatever is causing that grief, it has nothing to do with the infant’s mortality.

“Hey. Come back here. You’re wandering a bit.”

Israfil opens eyes he hadn’t realized were shut and finds himself facing Jane, who looks concerned. “Sorry,” he croaks, and realizes he now needs to rest as much as those exhausted soldiers do. “There was…a lot to take in.”

“No kidding. That was intense, and I wasn’t even doing anythin,’” Jane says. “You look knackered, by the way.”

“I feel like it.” Israfil pushes his hair back from his face, drying the sweat from his skin as he does so. “Look, Crowley’s fine now. I’m going to find a bed. You two can let the others know that everything’s all right, but tell them to leave my brother _alone._ Let him sleep it off.”

Jane tilts her head and then reaches out, tugging what’s left of the back of Crowley’s t-shirt back down to cover his skin before leaving. “Y’know he’d be more comfortable that way.”

“He would, yes. Gabriel, out!”

Gabriel holds up his hands in surrender, but takes one more glance at Crowley before he turns away. Israfil watches them leave, and then opens a drawer in a nearby rolling tray. If he’s going to push this corporation into quickly replenishing the blood Crowley left all over Canary Wharf, he needs to put a tube in his stubborn brother’s skin for an IV line.

Crowley flops over onto his back when Israfil is just about to jab a needle into his flesh. “Stop that,” Israfil mutters at his unconscious brother. “You’re not getting away from a needle that easily, and it hurts less than being fucking stabbed. Besides, when you wake up, your wings are going to hate you.” The energy burn from the healing is easy enough to soothe, but his brother was flying in ways their wings weren’t really designed for. Combat flight _aches_ afterwards, and Crowley is the special sort of arsehole who managed to sprain the primary joints of his wings in four different places. Israfil can’t heal that until Crowley can manifest his wings again, which means waiting for those burnt channels to heal. Three days. Five, maybe. Israfil can’t quite tell.

Israfil considers his brother’s health and human curiosity before he hooks his brother up to one of the life support monitors the humans use. Then he turns off all of its sudden, blaring alarms. Much better.

The numbers on the screen are already perfect for a deeply sleeping angel in a physical corporation that needs to heal. Israfil finds sticky notes in a vibrant orange, writes down the proper range of numbers for Crowley’s breathing and heart rate, slaps them onto the monitor, and leaves to find a bed.

Medical idiots trying to repeatedly kill his brother does not improve his mood, especially after Israfil points at the fucking sticky notes that a few stupid humans somehow failed to notice. Israfil finally scowls, finds a sheet of paper, and pastes a giant warning over the stupid life support monitor. If anyone tries to fuck with Crowley’s heartbeat after reading that sign, Israfil is going to send them somewhere unpleasant.

He’s just fallen asleep again when Michael wakes him up. Israfil almost bites her in agitation before she has the chance to tell him what Uriel informed her of.

“Oh. Oh, that’s good,” Israfil says, and goes right back to sleep.

Israfil snaps awake at noon, uncertain what woke him after finally achieving an uninterrupted hour of rest. He feels off-kilter.

No, he feels fine. That’s Zaherael.

Israfil miracles himself to the recovery tent and swears when he finds an empty bed, an abandoned IV line, and no Crowley. “You incompetent twits can’t be arsed to keep a patient from leaving?” Israfil hisses the reminder, but the only one to hear him is a patient who just looks baffled by Israfil’s sudden appearance.

He stalks back out of the tent, tracking Crowley by feel. Crowley should have been asleep for most of the afternoon, but his brother is a stubborn shit.

He finds Crowley curled up on the ground, his back resting against a stack of supply crates that look like they belong to someone’s military. Crowley’s arms are wrapped around his knees, and he’s staring, blank-faced, at the wall of Black Fire that rages just beyond the razor-topped fence.

Israfil is about to call his name, but Crowley speaks first. “D’you know what Aziraphale’s favorite poem is? Well, maybe not the favorite-favorite. There’s a lot of them that he likes. Long list by now, after sixty centuries of humans making poems, but it still rates pretty high.”

“Poetry hasn’t come up very often,” Israfil says, a bit too bewildered to yell at Crowley for being out of bed. “Aziraphale has been more interested in shoving novels at me.”

“Yeah. Sounds like him.” Crowley continues to give the fire his unblinking regard. “It goes like this, and yeah, I know I have it right, because I’ve heard it often enough:

“_‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers -_

_That perches in the soul -_

_And sings the tune without the words -_

_And never stops - at all -_

_And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -_

_And sore must be the storm -_

_That could abash the little Bird_

_That kept so many warm -_

_I’ve heard it in the chillest land -_

_And on the strangest Sea -_

_Yet - never - in Extremity,_

_It asked a crumb - of me._”

Israfil feels like he’s been punched in the chest. “Who wrote that?”

“Some American woman named Emily. Dickens? Duckworth? Dickenson? I don’t remember. Aziraphale told me he’d been so excited to meet someone who could use words that way that he boarded a boat, her book in his bag, intent on meeting her. Instead, all he met was a gravestone. Nothing of hers was published until after she died. When Aziraphale finally told me about that trip, I don’t think…pretty sure I hadn’t seen him that upset since they torched the Library of Cordoba. That one was almost as bad as Alexandria.”

Israfil draws in a deep breath and kneels next to his brother. “Crowley. Look at me.”

Crowley slowly turns his head, his eyes so dull they’re almost not gold at all. He radiates such utter misery that Israfil doesn’t know how he avoided being slapped in the face by it the moment Crowley woke up. “What.”

“Do you remember what happened in London, Brother?” Israfil asks.

Crowley’s gaze slips as he lowers his head. “I think so. I think—” Then he chokes on the words, teeth drawn back in an attempt to bury the sob ready to pour out of his throat. “Zira.”

“Zaherael.” Israfil pulls his unresisting sibling into his arms, ignoring the sensation of pain that comes from Crowley’s wings. “Listen to me. All right?”

“Listening,” Crowley mumbles against his shoulder.

“Good.” Israfil hopes his brother doesn’t try to flee in disbelief. “Aziraphale is fine.”

Crowley leans back, eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Aziraphale is fine,” he repeats, as if the words are incomprehensible.

Israfil captures his brother’s face with both hands and makes Crowley look into Israfil’s eyes. “Aziraphale is _fine_,” he says again, firm and unshakable. “Michael told me. Uriel rang her mobile. Aziraphale is incorporeal and utterly tetchy about it, but he’s all right. No harm done beyond the discorporation.”

Crowley stares at Israfil for a minute before his eyes begin to shine again, complete with rising tears. “He’s fine?”

“I swear that he is.”

“Oh. Oh, that’s…_fuck_,” Crowley gasps, and bursts into a horrific, keening wail. It’s just as much shattered relief as it is released grief.

“Oh, my Brother.” Israfil pulls Crowley close again, wrapping his arms around Crowley and holding on tight as Crowley weeps and muffles screams against Israfil’s shoulder. It isn’t just his terror of losing Aziraphale that comes pouring out, but his fear that he would fail everyone he’d claimed responsibility for. The terror and pain of six months of torture in Hell. The shock of recognition, followed by near-constant worry about the Doctor, about Israfil, Ba‘al, and all their siblings, though he considers Lucy capable of taking care of herself. His fear for the children, and for everyone who was accidentally left behind in London.

Zaherael’s utter terror of the Racnoss, and knowing he had to face them anyway. That feeling is so sharp it’s like serrated blades to the mind.

“I know that it’s been a very long weekend, Zaherael.” Israfil breathes the words against his brother’s tangled hair, realizing that he’s wept his own tears of relief. “But it’s over now. Everyone is safe.”


	40. Parley

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Parley: noun [C]  
us /ˈpɑːr.li/ uk /ˈpɑː.li/  
"a discussion between two groups of people, especially one that is intended to end an argument"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cheer-read by @norcumii and gleefully cackled about by @morgynleri; @mrsstanley says thank-you for the well-wishing but I'm pretty sure her brains oozed out of her ears about two weeks back, so we might have to repeat it to her a few times for it to sink in. <3
> 
> (The summary isn't a cheat; I did that on purpose. (Okay, it's also a cheat.))

When the last Racnoss in London starves to death, the wall of Black Fire on the M25 fades away. Maybe it’s a coincidence, or perhaps divine providence. No one is really certain of which, including the Celestials. Ultimately, they all decide it doesn’t matter. London belongs to them again…even if nobody can go back until the Racnoss bodies are hauled away.

No one wants that job. Absolutely no one. It takes the offer of hourly wages at over one hundred pounds per hour to get enough workers so the task will be done in a week, as opposed to it being done sometime around Christmas.

After the Racnoss are gone comes the harder step, full of respect and grief in equal measure. Humans and alien immigrants in hazmat suits visit each house marked with a biohazard symbol on the doors, removing the dead who were left untouched by Racnoss. Some were not, but still, they clean and they sterilize, and they always bring _something_ back to the families who wait in the EEC areas. Other volunteer groups visit homes marked by the stickers that denote living animals left behind in the evacuation. As with the bodies, some survived intact. Others did not. These volunteers do the same as the other group: they clean and they sterilize, and they bring something back to the families waiting for word of those they’d been forced to leave behind. More often than not, it’s to tell those who wait that the food is restocked, the water fresh, the fish given another bubbling feeder, the serpent given another frozen mouse.

They find more surviving life than anyone expected. Even the ducks in the park look offended by the idea that they would allow themselves to be eaten by spider-centaurs.

There are decidedly less rats in the tube stations, though. Given how good rats are at filling the gaps, this isn’t minded so much.

First, though, long before those days arrive, a dying Time Lord has to say goodbye to someone he’ll immediately forget.

The Doctor finds Crowley sitting on an oversized packing crate not far from the medical area of the encampment. He sits down next to Crowley, whose face is still red and blotchy from a long cry. The Doctor knows, because his skin does the same bloody thing. It’s a horrible tell. “You all right?”

Crowley glances at him, his eyes trying to have human sclera and not quite managing it yet. “Yeah. Are you going to be all right?”

“Dunno.” The Doctor lifts his head as he catches sight of blonde hair. Rose is standing next to Jack, who has his arm slung over her shoulders. They’re both speaking to his elder self, who grins at them like they’re the most beloved things in the universe. It shines out of the Doctor, that love. He’d almost forgotten he was capable of it.

“Not yet,” the Doctor says, because he might as well be honest. “But it looks like I’m going to be.”

“Does seem that way.” Crowley reaches out, palm upright, fingers spread in invitation.

The Doctor hesitates before sliding his hand into place, feeling long fingers squeeze and ease off, but not yet let go. Then: “Oh,” he gasps, because the hug was psychic, and he hasn’t felt anything like it in a very long time.

“It hurts you to be physically hugged right now, in both senses of the word. But not that way,” Crowley says. “Very little is written in stone. You’ve got one hell of a path to get from here to where Not-Jane’s standing right now. Make sure you survive long enough to see it.”

The Doctor swallows. Then he feels guilty because he can’t quite muster the strength, or the courage, to give Crowley the same sort of hug. He thinks maybe Crowley understands, though. “Yeah. I’m going to. I want to ask my dad all the questions I can think of.”

Crowley grins, not cocky or smug, just…happy. “God, I hope so.” Then he tilts his head in the opposite direction, where Mickey and Martha are arguing with Donna over something that probably involves aliens and maths, or maybe Latin. “Did you talk to them? And the others?”

“I did, yeah. While you were in medical.” Crowley gives him an unimpressed look. “That isn’t the sort of conversation you leave with open-ended opportunity! I didn’t want them to have hours with me trapped in their clutches, asking about everything I’ve seen and done since I last saw them. Not when so much of it is…er…not great.”

Crowley squeezes his hand again and lets go, nodding. “I really understand that.”

The Doctor looks down at the thin strip of plastic Crowley left behind on his palm. “What’s this?”

“Think of it as encouragement,” Crowley replies, looking him in the eye before glancing away. “Shove the data from that flash drive into the TARDIS and let her deal with it. She’ll know what to do.”

“You’re collaborating with my TARDIS.”

Crowley shrugs with his entire body in a way that the Doctor can’t mimic. Bones in the wrong places, he supposes, or maybe the right places. “She started it.”

That…really shouldn’t be all that surprising. She likes to meddle just as much as he does. The Doctor glances upwards, where the sun is reflecting off the faint hints of a white moon and a smaller blue moon. They’re a bit off-schedule thanks to that repeating time loop; instead of being barely visible hints in the sky, the original moon is almost at its first quarter. “That’s going to throw off the next eclipse a bit.”

“More like the penumbral eclipse is going to be a two-for-one show this time,” Crowley says. “The second one has a wider orbit. It’ll be easier to see them both once it’s given the first one some space. They’ll still find their way back to each other, though.”

The Doctor pulls a face. “Is that an _allegory?_”

Crowley smirks at him. “Get outta here. Your timer is ticking, and you said you still had a wedding to attend.”

“Right. Yeah.” The Doctor stands up, feeling horribly awkward, but a bit comforted, too, even though he didn’t get an answer about the allegory. Maybe it doesn’t have to be an allegory to be a nice thought. “You changed history, doing that.”

“Nnngh.” Crowley’s mouth twists a bit. “Didn’t break anything in the process, though, so who cares?”

_Indeed_, the Doctor thinks. Maybe it’ll change certain things for the better. “I guess I’ll see you in a while.”

Crowley’s expression softens into another one of those bright, genuine smiles. “I’ll see _you_ in about five minutes.”

The Doctor turns and walks away before the urge to give in, to stay, bloody well ruins everything. He neatly avoids anyone who’d want him to linger and darts into his TARDIS, who welcomes him home.

“Yeah. I know,” the Doctor replies, closing the doors. He walks up the ramp and then slowly circles the controls. He can see it, so easily, the way those ancient crystals will one day grow from floor to ceiling. They’re Gallifreyan, those crystals, strong enough to hold literal lifetimes of Time Lord memories.

The Doctor studies the flash drive, flipping it over in his hand. Written in dark red marker in odd handwriting are the words _For Memory_. That could be good, or it could be bad.

_One way to find out,_ the Doctor thinks, and plugs the flash drive into the TARDIS when she provides him with a compatible data port. The information that appears on the screen is a list of unfamiliar names…and then suddenly the names are familiar. “Music? That’s not so bad, then. Definitely not fraught or anything, is it?”

The TARDIS hums in response, and then she steals all the data from the flash drive before the console opens up and eats the drive itself, too. “Oi! That wasn’t nice! You’ve been collaborating with my dad, haven’t you?”

She hums again, smug and pleased with herself. She knows exactly what she’s doing, the cheeky girl.

“All right, then.” The Doctor activates the first part of the TARDIS’s sequence, watching the lights on the console brighten in a way that almost always makes him smile. “Y’know, I think we’re gonna be okay. That’s a thing to hope for, isn’t it?”

The TARDIS’s reply is wordless, a pulse of energy that seems to grant him the strength and warmth to stand tall again.

“Right. Off we go.” The Doctor pulls the lever, listens to the engines rise in pitch, and closes his eyes.

* * * *

“What do you mean, you’re not going to answer me?” O snarls. “We had a deal! I’d fetch you, but I got to ask all the questions I liked!”

“Yeah, I remember.” The Doctor grins at him. “Didn’t say anythin’ about answering those questions, now did I?”

O’s expression flickers before he growls in thwarted frustration. “I hate you. I’m also very proud of you for doing that. But I hate you.”

The Doctor pats his shoulder before he forgets his snit and tries to take her hand off for it. “I know you do.”

“Well, myself and my frenemy—”

“Your _what._”

The Doctor’s youngest self grins at O. “Now that middle-us has snuck off like a stray cat stealing from the rubbish bins, I should be off.”

“You could always stay a bit longer,” Donna suggests. “Probably no harm in it. Is there?” she asks Rose, who only smiles.

“Nah, can’t. I might do this to myself sometimes, but the moment the emergency is over, I definitely shouldn’t linger. It eventually makes things a bit more wobbly than they already are,” he says, holding out his hand to…well, herself. Himself-herself.

The Doctor takes it and grins, because she’d liked being this man, once upon a time. “Keep yourself in one piece.”

“You’d best do the same. I’d like to find all of the pieces still attached when I finally catch up to you!” He hesitates. “Well, maybe most of the pieces. Unless we really gave up on gender?”

“Nope, fully female. Probably, I mean,” the Doctor adds, frowning. “I haven’t exactly gone chromosome-hunting to check.”

“Just leave it a mystery. You need something to occupy your brain. Besides me, anyway,” O says to her while Rose and Jack take turns hugging her younger self. “Gender’s all in your head, anyway.”

“Is there anything I should be doing in regards to your gender, then? Pronouns?” the Doctor asks, curious.

O rolls his eyes. “No. I don’t care nearly as much about being considered male as I used to. Being Missy for a while, being a woman, really screws up your view of the entire universe. It’s a complete pain in the backside. Didn’t like it at all.”

“And we both know how much you hate learning that you’re still not the center of the universe.”

“Please. That hasn’t changed at all.” O raises his voice. “Oi, you with the jacket!”

The Doctor’s younger self turns around in his TARDIS doorway. “What?”

“I’m only sort of sorry for a _lot_ of the things I’m going to do to you in your near future,” O says, his expression completely bland.

“Pfft. Like that’s any different than usual,” her younger self retorts, and shuts the TARDIS door behind him. A moment later, the engines are warming up, and the Time Circuit with it.

“Did you just blow off my not-apology?” O asks the Doctor.

The Doctor shrugs. “You hate gratitude.”

“True,” O allows, both of them narrowing their eyes as the air rushes in to fill the gap where the TARDIS had been parked, bringing last year’s dead leaves and plenty of dust with it.

Jack approaches them and crosses his arms to stare at O. “You should be so glad Mickey and Martha are way too busy right now to realize who you really are. Their lives are shorter, and their perspective is very twenty-first century human. Mine’s not.”

O is unimpressed about being recognized. “Shouldn’t you be off doing the same thing they are? Nothing better to do than stand around and look pretty, Captain?”

“Eh, that’s the fun part about being in charge. I say when I’m on lunch.” Jack suddenly lurches forward and grabs O by his shirtfront. “So, fair warning: if you _ever_ come after any of my people directly, I’ll make 2008 look like a fucking picnic, just for you.” Jack lets go just as suddenly as he latched on.

O stumbles back a step and then straightens, startled and trying to cover it with a sneer. “I don’t feel all that threatened.”

“My name used to be Javic Thane.”

O stares at Jack. “All right, I feel a little bit threatened. Happy now?”

“Ecstatic,” Jack drawls.

“So, before you head off—and because I know O here is about to scarper, and thank God for that—we had a question for you,” Ryan says. Yaz wanders over to stand with them just as the Doctor hears the click of the comm turning on, though nobody in Sheffield says anything. “We wanted to know if you knew anything about a lone Cyberman.”

Jack frowns. O takes two more steps back, and the Doctor sighs. She isn’t surprised that O is involved, but she was sort of hoping he wouldn’t bother. “Do you mean, a lone Cyberman as in one all by itself, or is that some sort of weird title?”

Yaz and Ryan glance at each other. “Both, maybe,” Yaz says. “But when we met you, you were a bit specific with your warning.”

Jack lowers his arms, head tilted. “I haven’t met either of you. Believe me, you’re hot. I’d remember.”

Ryan nods. “We sort of figured that. Well, my granddad figured on it. He says you look younger than the version of you that we met, though I wasn’t paying as much attention to your face as I was to you being weird.”

“And randomly snogging people you’d just met,” Yaz adds.

“I do that sometimes.” Jack grins. “Was I still fabulous?”

“Oh my God.” The Doctor tries not to bury her face in her hands. “Priorities, Jack!”

“Hey, that _is_ a priority!” Jack protests. Then he points at O. “But you, you definitely know something about a lone Cyberman.”

O glances at the others as they turn to look at him. Then he stares right at the Doctor and grins. “See you later,” he says, and vanishes in the bright flare of a teleport.

The Doctor ignores the urge to shiver. “I know that smile. I’m not lookin’ forward to that.”

“Does O have any sort of smile that isn’t smug and sort of evil?” Rose asks, though she doesn’t sound much fussed. Then again, O is bloody terrified of her, so the Doctor imagines being fussed isn’t all that necessary.

The Doctor feels the unwanted stabbing echo of old pain in her hearts. “Yeah. But I don’t know how long it’s been for him since that was a thing he was capable of.”

“Therapy,” Donna says, “therapy for both of you.”

“That’d be nice,” the Doctor admits. “Jack?”

Jack shakes his head. “No idea. What year was it when you lot ran into other-me?”

“_This year,_” Graham says over the comm. “_Not even two weeks ago._”

Jack looks surprised. “Two fixed points in the same time and place? That should’ve set your radar off like mad, Doc.”

The Doctor sucks on her teeth for a moment. “Yeah, uh…I was a bit…distracted.” Very distracted. Digging up your own ship will do that to a body.

“Right; I heard the Judoon were being their usual selves up in Sheffield, which is _really_ getting out of hand,” Jack replies. “I had them pop in last year and try to make off with an alien that Torchwood had already granted legal amnesty to. Claimed they didn’t have to listen to us. Do you have any idea how many rules and regulations I had to recite at them before they’d back off?”

“All of them, probably.” The Doctor frowns. “They’re probably not much happy with me right now, either. I helped their target escape.” _Because their target was me, except it wasn’t me, except it had to be, because that was _my_ TARDIS._ That’s still breaking her brain, because it makes no sense at all.

“_So, nothing from you then. You really are just a pretty face, aren’t you?_” Graham teases Jack.

“Wait, hold on, I’m trying to decide how complimented I should be by that,” Jack says.

Donna rolls her eyes. “You can figure that out later, Jack. You owe me a lift, Doctor.”

“What? A lift? Where?” The Doctor spins around, confused and intrigued. “Where am I lifting you?”

“Fifty-first century,” Donna replies. “Remember Lee McAvoy?”

The Doctor sorts through a lot of memory and then brightens. “Yeah, I do remember that! The Library! The bloke you couldn’t find after everything was…er…shuffled about. What about him?”

Jack grins at her. “I’m so disappointed in you, Doc, because you really should’ve picked up on it.”

“Merrill E. McAvoy,” Donna explains, smirking. “Second-oldest—”

“—heir to the McAvoy Estate on Shallacatop!” The Doctor plasters her hands in her hair. “Oh, my God! I’m stupid! How could I off an’ forget about him? All the survivors of the Library are famous, but that one was famous an’ rich!”

“And. Single,” Donna emphasizes. “Catchin’ my drift here, Spacegirl?”

“Spacegirl?”

Donna shrugs. “I’m trying things out to see how they fit.”

The Doctor thinks about it. “That one’s not too bad. Fifty-fifty on it. Right. First, no one’s going anywhere until you lot have had time to rest up, because even I know this weekend was a mess. Then we’re off to get you a spare mobile so I can happen to it with my sonic. I’m not takin’ anyone _anywhere_ unless we’re guaranteed that you’ve got a proper way to ring me!”

* * * *

“Did you find out the identity of the newly Fallen?” Gabriel asks.

Lucy lowers her mobile, rage briefly twisting her perfect features before it smooths away. “No. Belphegor tells me that this one claims to remember his name, but he won’t say it. His wings were burnt entirely away in his Fall, so there will be no identifying his former sphere of residence or ranking in that regard.”

Michael nods. Somehow, he finds he isn’t surprised. “Any identifying features on their form?”

Lucy shakes her head. “He climbed out of the sulfur with moss for hair and eyes like mud puddles. Neither of those traits are common in Heaven. You! I need to know why I’m lacking a demon, even if you conveniently replaced him!”

Michael turns around to see Israfil approaching. Behind him, sliding sunglasses back onto his face and still wearing the same tattered clothes from that morning, is Crowley. “Should you not still be recovering?”

Israfil rolls his eyes. “Stubborn. Shit,” he grinds out. “_Grounded_ stubborn shit, no less.”

“Excuse the fuck out of you—wait. You meant flight-grounded.” Crowley frowns. “Why?”

“Because you sprained four major joints in your wings,” Israfil says. “Four. I fixed too many broken bones in your wing last year as it is! Are you trying to outdo yourself?”

Crowley shrugs and winces. “Ow. Right, that explains why my wings hurt. Why aren’t we fixing it?”

“You don’t—” Israfil sighs and lowers his head. “Forgive me for my temper, Brother. I didn’t realize you did not remember.”

Crowley stares at Israfil in complete bafflement. “Didn’t remember what? That list is still pretty long, Brother. Besides, there’s nothing to apologize for. I really am an idiot.”

“If you channel the energy needed to heal another’s true form from a potentially fatal injury, what happens?” Israfil asks—with his patience returned to him, Michael notes.

“Energy burn,” Crowley recalls after a moment. “That explains the joint pain earlier, wasn’t sure where that’d come from. But you fixed that. I’m not feeling…burnt. I kind of know exactly what that’s like.”

Israfil shakes his head. “No, Brother. I _soothed_ that burn. If I were to try to heal your wings, a part of your true self, you would not like the experience.”

“It’s just pain.” Crowley grimaces when Israfil makes a faint and grieving sound of dismay. Gabriel flushes with guilt. “Okay, yep. Grounded, got it. Lucy, since I know you’re wondering: you lost Not-Hastur.”

“Ah.” Lucy crosses her arms and taps her blood-red fingernails against the sleeve of her jacket. “Why did you judge my former duke, Healer?”

“Let’s see. He—no, sorry, she at the time—planted two hellfire-burning hell-forged iron daggers into my sodding kidneys, knowing full well that you’d told her to leave off. She talked about dethroning you and Ba‘al, calling your leadership weak—” Ba‘al looks offended; Lucy looks…well, if Michael had to define the expression, he would decide upon _curiously furious_. “—and oh, right, she partnered with the lesser archangel Rizophale to assassinate Aziraphale, and gave that stupid fuck a hell-forged blade to pull it off. Not-Hastur didn’t appreciate burning to death by holy fire, and I’m not fucking sorry.”

Everyone in the room flinches except for Crowley. Death by holy fire, when not delivered by a divine weapon or directly by their Father, is not a merciful way to die.

Then the rest of what Crowley told them catches up to him. Rizophale, here on Earth to assassinate an angel he had not likely seen in centuries? Why?

“Rizophale?” Gabriel sounds as baffled as Michael feels. “Why on Earth would Rizophale do such a thing?”

“Dunno. Maybe he had a good example in several higher archangels to mimic when it came to having a war, and when the war went away…” Crowley trails off and gives Gabriel and Michael a rather expectant look, even with the sunglasses blocking Michael’s view of Crowley’s eyes.

“Oh.” Gabriel sits down in the nearest portable chair. “Is this my fault?”

“Nah. Just making a point about leading by example. It’s not anyone’s fault that this prick couldn’t switch tracks when the memo went out that the war was canceled, followed by Herself announcing the war was never supposed to happen. That archangel was _angry_, brother,” Crowley says. “Not angelic wrath, just hate and revenge. Not-Hastur found a ripe idiot, plucked him, and pointed him in Aziraphale’s direction. That’s all.”

Lucy looks nervous. “Hell would owe reparations to you, then.”

“Not-Hastur was acting against your orders. Hell doesn’t owe the Earth nearly as much as Heaven does.” Crowley glances at Michael. “A demon might’ve placed the blade in his hand, but Rizophale is the one who chose to use it in an attempt to murder another. He nearly succeeded.”

“But—making him Fall—” _You could have done that to our siblings, easily, when you were restored to yourself,_ Michael thinks, his heart suddenly speeding up in his corporation’s chest. _They attempted to do the very same to Aziraphale_.

Crowley yanks off his glasses and gives Michael a look of utter disbelief. “Make someone—I can’t make anyone Fall! I can suggest it, but I can’t make that happen. Anyway, I didn’t…I made it so he was no longer an archangel. That’s all. I told him he could choose to be anything else, but he would never be an archangel again. Rizophale _chose_ to Fall, Michael. He chose it immediately, and gladly, and I doubt he regrets whatever sort of demon he’s become. Granted, he really, really hates someone Downstairs, so if another demon ends up dead, you can probably blame him.”

“I still don’t understand the point, though.” Gabriel’s pinched expression reminds Michael that they are lacking another angel from Heaven, even if they may be gaining an Earth-bound angel in Ba‘al. “Rizophale hasn’t…he hasn’t even ventured beyond the City in millennia.”

“There was this weird quirk in the Purgatory simulation Aziraphale was in.” Crowley looks as if he’s chewing on the inside of his lower lip. “He told me about it later. If we hadn’t already figured out that things were fucked up, this would’ve sealed the deal. Aziraphale saw Rizophale in the old Home Office construct. Didn’t interact with him or anything, but he was there. First time in centuries Aziraphale had seen him, too. If Rizophale was your you attempt at keeping things subtle, it was a complete fail.”

“There should have been no sign of someone so reclusive in Purgatory. The simulations were meant to convince others of their normalcy, which is why Uriel was so surprised when…well…” Michael feels a brief moment of amusement. “Fwoosh.”

“Do you think it was a hint from our Father?” Gabriel asks.

Michael tries not to purse his lips. The expression looks ridiculous on him when he is in male form. “I don’t know. I would need to ask, but you know how our Father is with answers.”

Israfil’s expression is pragmatic acceptance. “Sparse on the ground.”

“Except for that prophecy. That bloody double-layered prophecy.” Crowley recites it again, possibly for Gabriel’s benefit, as Michael never quite got around to mentioning it to anyone but Crowley, Israfil, and Aziraphale by mobile. “_This puzzle box must be solved from within, not from without. The pieces will come together within the trap. Each one fits into the other, no matter the divide of time and space. Among them lie two secrets, each a part of the other. When these secrets are laid bare, the trap will collapse_.”

“Solved from within the Earth, and from within London. Each piece fits into the other—that’s everyone who turned up full of artron energy, _and_ the partnership between Rizophale and Not-Hastur.” Israfil rolls his eyes. “That makes for an extra bit with that ‘each a part of the other’ line, too.”

“Stacked on top of myself and my kid, yeah.” Crowley shakes his head. “Thanks for the hint, Mum.”

“What was repelling the Racnoss?” Gabriel asks. “I saw you kick an amulet of some sort into the fire when I called it, and there was nothing left afterwards.”

“Right, that.” Crowley rubs at his shoulder with one hand and then looks bemused when his hand comes away streaked with ash. “Those were demonic creations, probably Not-Hastur’s work. Not-Hastur and Rizophale were using them to hide from everyone, Racnoss included. Two runes combined together. One was—well, it’s like the perception filter thing the time ships were using. Some lower-ranking demons use it to lurk without being noticed. Stacked on top of it was a fucking spider-repelling rune.”

Ba‘al makes a sound that might have been a choked-off laugh. “They relied on a mere spider-repellent to keep them safe?”

“Dunno if it’s because Not-Hastur finally figured out how useful belief is, or if she was just dumb enough to think spider-repellent was enough, but they worked because Not-Hastur believed they would work,” Crowley replies. “That made Rizophale believe the amulets were powerful, and I was just fine with the fucking thing working if it meant I wasn’t going to be eaten.”

Michael isn’t certain why that returns the memory to them, but it does; they recall the last of Rizophale’s service during the war in Heaven. “Rizophale could not fly after the war. He was scarred. Rizophale wants revenge against one of the demons in Hell because one of the Fallen crippled his wings. By the time his wounds were seen to, there were no Healers left in Heaven who could repair them. That’s why he would be so angry as to target Aziraphale and Crowley for halting Armageddon. That was only the first part of the revenge he sought.”

“Good luck to him, then.” Crowley’s teeth are bared in anger. “Stupid fuck’s got no idea what he’s really in for.”

“Belphegor is…enlightening him.” Lucy looks thoughtful. “Such an injury does explain why Rizophale would so readily give up his wings to the Fall, and infighting Below does serve its purpose. It is still a poor end for one whose name meant ‘Rise of God.’ Or perhaps it’s an ironic one.”

“The infighting would be more useful if everyone Below didn’t fucking forget,” Crowley says. “You don’t, but everyone else does.”

“There are reasons for that,” Lucy murmurs.

Crowley’s expression tightens. “Course there are. Nothing I like better than forgetting my own fucking name.”

“Crowley,” Israfil says, resting his hand on Crowley’s shoulder. “I know the past few days have been hard, but picking a fight with Lucy won’t fix any of it.”

“Wanker,” Crowley growls under his breath. Michael isn’t certain if Crowley is referring to Lucifer or Israfil.

Gabriel seems to be gathering courage, and when he speaks, Michael realizes why—and is glad of his well-timed distraction. “Did it…er…go well? The two of the Time Lords leaving?”

“It’s easier being down to one version of my kid again instead of three of them,” Crowley answers, but then he hesitates. “Yeah. It went…well as it could’ve, really. No one left angry, and that’s better than what I can usually manage.”

“You are not nearly as awful as you continue to think yourself to be,” Israfil says. “Actually—out of curiosity, who is Rizophale so interested in killing?”

“He’s—” Crowley breaks off, eyes going wide. Then he starts laughing. This isn’t humorous laughter, but the near-wild cackle of the demonic. “He wanted revenge against _Daniethael!_” he gasps out.

Michael has no idea what the problem is with that, or why it’s funny. It’s not uncommon knowledge that the angel who had been Daniethael was Fallen. Then he looks at Israfil, who has raised both eyebrows. “Well, that’s going to be rather difficult for him to accomplish, isn’t it?”

Lucy looks exceptionally pleased. “The best punishment I could conceive of has already been enacted against him, and I didn’t need to lift a finger. Thank you, Crowley.”

“Didn’t do it for you,” Crowley says. “You’re welcome, though.”

Gabriel glances at Michael. “I don’t understand. Why is this humorous?”

“Because Daniethael was Not-Hastur,” Israfil answers, the smirk on his face far more mindful of his brother. “Not only did Rizophale partner with the very demon he wanted so badly to kill, he chose to Fall for a revenge he’ll never have.”

“Oh.” Michael isn’t certain he’ll ever share in their humor in the situation. There was a time when he nearly forgot himself, when the Fallen had become nothing but demons to be eliminated. He vaguely recalled that his youngest brother was among the Fallen, that he should be watched for, protected from the overzealous among the Host, but over the millennia, even Michael forgot what his brother truly looked like. Even if he’d remembered, there were no guarantees. Almost every demon Michael encountered looked nothing like the angels they’d once been.

Then, while recovering from the absolute _worst_ hangover he’s ever had, during the Earth year 4 B.C., Michael had run into the Doctor. Of course, the Doctor had looked quite a bit like the demon Crowley at the time, and appeared to be right in the midst of corrupting a strangely-dressed human woman who was all but aglow with innocence. Michael’s response had been instinctive violence. He’d chased the pair through Bethlehem for long minutes before his corporation’s insistently pounding head knocked loose jumbled recollections, slowing his steps. Michael finally stopped running in the middle of a street, sword returned to the ether, his eyes wide in disbelief.

_Zaherael_, Michael had thought, and nearly broke right then and there. He’d just tried to kill his brother.

It was a relief, several days ago, to find out that Michael had not tried to kill Zaherael in Bethlehem. That was followed not long afterward by horror when he learned he’d nearly slaughtered Zaherael’s _child_. Both were terrible; both acts would have had consequences that would have ended existence.

Two thousand years after Bethlehem, Michael would see Crowley in London at a corner café, slumped in his seat across from Aziraphale. Michael still has no idea how Aziraphale never realized that Crowley was _blatantly_ in love with him, considering that Michael felt like he was suddenly drowning in the sensation from two blocks away. That was when Michael was reassured; if Heaven ever tried to act against the demon Crowley, his brother would be very damp, and _very_ confused by the sudden influx of holy water, but not destroyed. No one capable of that much love could be destroyed by the divine.

When that time came, after Armageddon’s failure, Michael volunteered to take the holy water to Hell himself, certain he would not be questioned. Gabriel told him that Aziraphale would be brought to Heaven for a trial, but Michael still underestimated the hate and spite that Gabriel’s broken spirit was capable of. If Crowley had not known of some means to safeguard Aziraphale…Michael still doesn’t like to think on what might have happened that day.

(Gabriel, Uriel, Sandalphon: for murder of an innocent, they would have Fallen. One would have embraced it; two would never have understood the nature of their trespass.)

“I recall the idea of reparations between dominions.” Ba‘al’s words slow are slow and measured. “I do not recall why Hell’s reparation to the dominion of the Earth would be less than what is owed by Heaven.”

“Because we never ordered the Host to leave Aziraphale, Crowley, and Israfil alone.” Michael’s heart clenches with regret, both for what was and what is. “We didn’t order them to leave the Earth alone, either. Crowley was a publicly redeemed archangel seen in Her company. The war was not meant to be. We didn’t think it would be necessary. Rizophale was not acting against orders when he attempted to murder the Principality Aziraphale, and therefore he represented Heaven in truth, if unwantedly so.”

Gabriel lifts his head from his guilty introspection. “Why did Rizophale deserve the mercy of choice, but, er, Not-Hastur did not?”

“Okay, first off? I’ve lost track of the number of times Not-Hastur has tried to kill me,” Crowley answers, visibly irritated. “Two: he tried to discorporate Israfil last year, which is how he lost his name and rank. Three: he set up my fiancé for complete annihilation. I was done with Not-Hastur being a constant threat to my dominion. Also, I did Lucy a favor by getting rid of someone already willing to challenge the Council and her throne. Lowercase favor, though, not a Favor-favor.”

Israfil suddenly reaches out and shoves Crowley into a chair. “Sit. Down. I saw that wobble.”

“Oi, you could have just asked,” Crowley mutters, but he doesn’t argue about the chair. “Shit. Energy burn. It would hurt to pass through the ethereal plane. I wouldn’t even be able to use the sodding mobile signals right now, would I?”

“Like I said.” Israfil appears sympathetic, though it never stops him from being heavy-handed if he feels it necessary. “Grounded, Brother.”

Crowley plasters one hand over his face. “Shit. How grounded is grounded, Raphael?”

Israfil frowns. “Do you recall what happened the first time I tried to will myself to a different place in Heaven after we’d put someone together who had nearly been fractured into unsalvageable pieces?”

Crowley drops his hand, brow furrowed. “Hold on, that requires digging—oh. Oh, fuck. You fell on your bloody face. Low-level miracles only. No big anything. Stopping time is _definitely_ on the list of no big anythings.”

“At least you know that you did it correctly,” Israfil says. “Aziraphale is fine.”

“Yes, but I can’t—I can’t _see_ him.” Crowley shrugs. “Seeing’s believing.”

Michael tries not to bite his lip. He worried just as much about Uriel, despite his utter certainty that she’d only been discorporated by the Racnoss, not destroyed. “I asked Uriel to phone me the moment Aziraphale is awake and capable of using a mobile, little brother.”

Crowley glances at him. Michael’s brother is usually so guarded, so intent on keeping everything to himself, but right now, it’s easy to see how affected he is by Aziraphale’s temporary loss. “Thanks.”

“Let’s…” Gabriel seems to be doing better at recognizing when things have turned awkward. “You mentioned reparations. What would you choose, Crowley?”

“Well…” Crowley puts his sunglasses back on, but doesn’t put the entirety of that intent shield over his expression. Perhaps the rifts between the Seven are healing better than Michael thought they were. “If we stuck to the old way of doing things, it’d probably suck. But fuck the old customs. I’d rather fix London.”

Michael blinks a few times. “You want to miracle the city restored?”

“No! No, that’s a terrible idea. I don’t want anyone to be able to point at an instantly restored city and claim that the Racnoss never happened, that London never had to be evacuated. This event has to spread, Michael. It _did_ spread before, the idea of there being more in Heaven and Earth, et cetera et cetera, and then that knowledge got erased by a reset of Time.” Crowley pinches the bridge of his nose and suddenly looks very tired. “Look, humans are fucking resilient, and kind, and patient, but the latter two have limits when everyone is crammed into each other’s space all the time. I give it about three or four months before the tents, the shared hotel rooms, and the cramped guest rooms drive people bug-fucking stir-crazy. The miracled instant fix is a bad idea, but easing the way? Putting London back together before autumn begins? Nothing wrong with that, is there?”

“No.” Israfil looks thoughtful. “If I’m understanding the goal correctly, it would only increase the overall positive outcome.”

“Right, that. Easy to find floorplans and building schematics that have been lost for decades. Humans who suddenly have the paperwork to prove they own the property that’s been rebuilt, or they have proof of when and for how much they leased a flat or a house. Blueprints mysteriously turn up in the right places for the power grids, the water, the sewer lines, the Underground—sodding everything. Building materials that are suddenly easy to find, that are affordable—mostly because the humans can dig up the chunks of rubble I converted to silicon carbide and sell it. That stuff is valuable, and will keep the kingdom’s budget from fucking tanking over the cost of rebuilding everything Typhaon or the Racnoss destroyed. The humans still put in the effort, but everything just miraculously falls into place. No delays, no wondering when supplies are going to arrive, the money is where it needs to be when the humans need it—that’s the reparation I want from both sides.”

Michael finds himself breathing easier. “That, little brother, is an exceptionally good idea.” It’s also a kindness. Crowley would have had the right to demand far more on behalf of his dominion, but this is better. This is the sort of cooperative effort that will have the humans looking out for each other. The alien immigrants will remain recognized, but in positive ways as their voluntary service to London becomes obvious. There will be enough of the miraculous involved that religious leaders will take note, hold it up as an example of what Her Son intended for them to be like.

Not all of them, of course. There are always those who will attempt to take advantage, to twist things to suit vile purposes, but the humans have become adept at sharing singular events with the entire world. Humans will be capable of making their own choices about what they believe.

Lucy is also nodding. “I’ll take care of manipulating the market so the harvested silicon carbide enrichens the effort, and that no one tries to take that wealth away from the reconstruction it is meant for.”

“There are diamonds down there, too,” Crowley says.

Lucy rolls her eyes. “Those are already highly overvalued. I don’t have to do anything to make those a sellable material, though I can…oh, I really don’t want to redirect greed. It’s too much fun.”

Crowley shrugs and then flinches when it again reminds him of his sprained wing joints. “Then go after the greedy shits among the buyers. Special offer: London’s only diamonds, straight out of a fucking alien invasion! Let the diamond sellers who are already stuffed up to their eyeballs with greed fight over the right to own a shiny piece of history.”

“Oh, if only the _idiots_ Downstairs had listened to all of your scheming when you told them about it!” Lucy exclaims. “I don’t have anyone in Hell who is half so talented at widespread chaos as you were.”

“Are,” Israfil mutters fondly.

“Remember Not-Hastur holding up his hand and asking, ‘What’s a computer?’” Crowley asks, his quote in a lower, flatter tone of disgusted loathing. Lucy laughs aloud, a sharp reminder of when she was only the Morningstar, and war had not yet been invented. Ba‘al’s smile lingers in their eyes, a reflection of amused recollection.

Michael’s mobile chooses that moment to ring. How annoying. He slides his hands into the gold-threaded jacket he’d convince his armor to become. Uriel’s name lights up the screen, making him smile, annoyance forgotten. “Yes?”

It isn’t Uriel. “H-hello. I-I’m, er, terribly sorry to bother you.” Aziraphale sounds nervous, terrified. Michael hopes Uriel has not been the cause.

By Heaven, Michael hopes _he_ hasn’t been the cause. He has tried very hard to prove that there had been mitigating circumstances at play when it came to interactions between them. For thousands of years.

Perhaps it isn’t Crowley who is the self-claimed idiot, but Michael who really deserves the title. Angels as a general rule do not change quickly. Michael has only demonstrated a mere six months of changed behavior compared to millennia.

“You are not bothering me at all,” Michael says. “In fact, there is someone here who would like to speak to you.”

Crowley appears at Michael’s side. If Michael didn’t know any better, he would have called it a miracle of movement. “Gimme.” The mobile is in Crowley’s hands almost before Michael has relinquished it.

“Do remember to bring that back,” Michael says as Crowley stalks out of the tent, staring at the mobile’s display. “Uriel has discovered phone sex.”

Crowley whirls around long enough to give Michael a horrified look. Then he puts the mobile to his ear and leaves them all to figure out the best way to begin weaving miracles together for the requested reparations.

Michael turns back to see that Lucy is scowling, the flames in her eyes brighter than usual. “What now?”

“He mentioned the forgetting the denizens of Hell suffer from,” Lucy spits. “As if that’s my fault!”

Maintaining their truce is still their wisest course of action. “I am sorry if my brother angered you, Lucifer,” Michael says.

The flames in Lucy’s eyes dim, but do not disappear. “He didn’t; not directly. Crowley merely complained of an ongoing difficulty that is beyond my means to solve.”

“Why do they forget?” Israfil asks. “Ba‘al had a difficult time recalling why they were supposed to call me, every day, for the first two months after we first spoke again.”

Lucy glances at Ba‘al, who does not look away. “Demons forget, Healer, when they feel that there is no reason to remember. Ba‘al had to fight, every day, to remember that they _had_ that reason. They succeeded in regaining and retaining that reason because you regularly dragged my stubborn Lord of Hell to Earth on a regular basis.”

“If one remains in Hell, surrounded by the reminder of why there is no hope, it is a battle easily lost,” Ba‘al says, their voice too flat.

Israfil reaches out and takes Ba‘al’s hand, but only after they signal that it’s acceptable. “You mean it’s habit.”

“In part,” Lucy agrees. She smiles at Israfil, but it isn’t a kind expression. “They forget, Healer, because they want to.”

* * * *

“Angel?” Crowley tries to sound confident, to sound like everything is fine. He gets the opposite, a pathetic whisper.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale sounds happy to hear from him. Crowley tells his pounding heart to please calm the fuck down. “I’ve missed you, my dear.”

“How long’s it been up there, anyway?” Crowley asks, baffled. “It’s only…well, it’s crunched-watch-o’clock down here. After noon on Monday but not dark yet. Close enough. I could reach out and check and I’d know, but I think I’d also become very good friends with a headache.”

“You’re babbling, dear,” Aziraphale says fondly.

Crowley stares down at the dirt and abused grass beneath his boots. “Yeah.”

“And…it’s been a few days, at the very least. God seems to have left time running a bit faster than usual up here, given that there are now two corporations which need replacing. Uriel’s is almost complete, so I expect you’ll be seeing her on Earth again shortly. I think Uriel will be far less tetchy once that’s done, too. I hadn’t realized how much her relationship with Michael had calmed her down until…well…”

“One’s stuck there, while the other’s stuck down here until the work is done.” Crowley sternly tells himself he is not going to cry, sob, weep, or otherwise fall apart in any fashion. Nope. Everything’s fine. He is all right, good as fucking gold. “I’m—saving you. I’m stuck down here, too. It…it’s too much of an outpouring of energy at once. Burns the channels.”

“I’m going to pretend I understand what you meant, dear.”

Crowley orders his brain to get with the program and tries again. He has no reason to be upset, because Israfil’s right—it _worked_. “It takes a lot of energy to heal that sort of damage to someone’s true self, angel. I sort of roasted myself a bit on the inside to make certain I wouldn’t fuck it up.” _Because I couldn’t lose you._ “It takes a few days to recover from that sort of thing.”

“I see.” Aziraphale sounds more worried about Crowley than any of the potential downsides, which is completely typical. “I’ve also been told that while my antics with Madam Tracy last year were quite amusing, I’m not to be repeating them. But it will only be for another day or two, Crowley. We’ve certainly endured worse than this.”

Crowley swallows. “Worse. Yeah.” Purgatory definitely counts as worse. Doesn’t mean Crowley has to like it, though.

“Uriel informed me that everyone else who remained in London with us were properly rescued,” Aziraphale says after a moment of odd, ringing silence. Maybe the ringing is just in Crowley’s ears.

“Well, Not-Hastur wasn’t. Not-Hastur doesn’t exist anymore.”

“Crowley!”

“He fucking earned it, angel! Three warnings, three chances. He went after someone who is _mine!_” Crowley snarls, and then bites it back. Nice to know he’s still angry on top of everything else.

Aziraphale swallows, the sound of it echoing down the signal of the mobile. Crowley can reach out and touch that signal, see it as the noise is translated from tiny bits of transmitted energy into a specific sound.

It’s very, very difficult not to try to ride the mobile signal directly to Aziraphale. It would hurt, a _lot_.

Actually, thinking on it, if he’s dealing with energy burn, he wouldn’t have the right sort of control. He’d probably discorporate himself. Fuck.

“What about Rizophale?” Aziraphale asks.

“Oh. Him.” Crowley finds a spot near the fence and sits down with his back to Black Fire’s quarantine wall. “I stripped him of his status as an archangel. Told him he could be anything he wanted afterwards, but he’d no longer hold rank as an angel. Took the fucker less than five seconds for him to choose to Fall. Idiot.”

“He _chose_ it—” Aziraphale’s voice cracks. “Oh, dear. That’s not the best sort of track record for Heaven this year, is it?”

“Two angels rose, two of them Fell.” Crowley tries to shrug and bites back swearing when his wings remind him that he’s stupid. He hasn’t done that sort of flying, all of that twisting, the weight of it, the speed, in a long, long time. Serves him right, he supposes. “Maybe there’s something to what old Enoch said about balance.”

“Did Ba‘al truly rise, then? I did notice their wings were different, but it didn’t seem polite to mention it,” Aziraphale says.

“That’s exactly the thing, angel. Their wings changed. Ba‘al’s not a demon anymore, even if they’re not yet ready to admit it.” Crowley blows out a puff of air, pushing away the tangled strand of hair that lands over his sunglasses. “Honestly, I think Ba‘al is fucking panicking. It’s not like unFalling was a goal they had in mind or anything, especially with Israfil not ever giving a fuck about them being a demon.”

“I suppose I understand that. If I suddenly woke up Fallen and demonic—”

Crowley is laughing before Aziraphale can finish that sentence. “Angel, you would make for a shit demon.”

“Oh, so much like you were, I imagine,” is Aziraphale’s prim response.

Crowley can’t really argue with that. “Yeah. I guess so.”

“Crowley?” Aziraphale hesitates. “I know when you’re upset, my dear. What’s wrong?”

It’s suddenly a lot harder to breathe. “Nothing.”

Gently: “Liar.” Then Aziraphale turns on his, “I mean business” voice. “Tell me, Crowley.”

“I had to fucking well discorporate you, that’s what’s wrong!” Crowley tries to shout, but it just comes out as a pathetic rasp.

“And it didn’t hurt,” Aziraphale murmurs. “I promise it didn’t.”

“After that, though?” Crowley shoves his free hand into his hair. “What about then?”

“Crowley. Darling.” Aziraphale sounds patient, firm, and unyielding. “Was it the most comfortable experience in the world to find myself…well, discorporated in worse shape than I’d assumed I would be in? No, of course not. Was it rather odd to feel pieces of me being fitted back together? Yes. But no, it didn’t hurt.”

Crowley feels tears run down his face, but his hand is a bit too busy yanking on his hair to get rid of the evidence. “It should’ve.”

“You ridiculous idiot.” Aziraphale’s voice is the epitome of everything he is, soft and beautiful. “It didn’t hurt because I was surrounded by love. Your love, in particular. I know full well that love can be pain, but in that moment? No. It wasn’t painful at all. Are you searching for something to feel guilty about? Because I can’t think of a single thing about this entire experience that’s been your fault.”

Crowley chokes back a sob, probably not fooling Aziraphale in the slightest. “What about Samael?”

“Oh, please,” Aziraphale scoffs. “That dead idiot chose to be evil long before you decided to stuff him into a pit on the edge of a black hole, dear.”

The choked-back sob becomes a garbled laugh. “Okay, yeah. Good point. You’re fine. You’re really, really fine, right? No fibbing, no evasions. I got it right, and you’re exactly the way you were before?”

“Except for being incorporeal?” There’s no blame in Aziraphale’s tone, just amusement. “Yes, Crowley. I promise that I’m fine, and exactly as I was before a fool attempted to kill me. Don’t torture yourself, my dear. I think we’ve both had enough of despair this century.”

“Despair,” Crowley repeats, and then groans aloud. “Fuck, I’m stupid!”

“You’re not!” Aziraphale sounds miffed. “But I’ve reminded you of something, haven’t I?”

“Azrael. I spoke to him on…” Crowley has to take a moment and count days, because it really has been one hell of a weekend. “Saturday, when we were checking houses during the evacuation. He said, _Do not give in to despair. It will not be as you believe_.”

“Oh. He meant this, didn’t he?”

Crowley groans again in frustration. “Azrael warned me, that arsehole, but he was a vague arse, just like usual, and I didn’t even—fuck, I didn’t even think about what he said until just now.”

“Crowley, we did _so much_ this weekend. Even by our standards, this was…Crowley, _we_ _evacuated London in two days._ Yes, we had to go back for a few stragglers and get them out on the third day, but the work, the planning, the effort involved! It’s no wonder you didn’t recall something Azrael said to you, especially once the Racnoss arrived.”

“Okay. You’re right. Okay.” Crowley breathes until his corporation’s heart remembers it doesn’t need to pound like he’s impersonating a terrified rabbit, or beat at anything resembling a human heartrate at all. He doesn’t need to breathe all the time, either. Stupid fucking panic. “You’re okay. I’m okay. We’re okay.”

“Yes, dear. We’re all right.”

This time, the long pause between them doesn’t feel awful or awkward before Aziraphale ventures, “Crowley?”

“Yeah, angel?”

“Zaazenach is very, _very_ strange.”

Crowley lets his head fall back against the fence, a stupid grin on his face. “She always was. Did you go and tell off Tenebris for all the shit she pulled last week?”

“I didn’t even recognize her at first!” Aziraphale protests. “We’d been speaking for an hour before I realized who she was, and then it felt like it would be rude!”

Crowley wipes his face dry. “Zira, I’ve heard you tell people off using the most pristine manners the universe has ever bloody known. Just admit that you have a fondness for demons who’ve got their shit together.”

“And whose fault is that, hmm?” Aziraphale retorts, and Crowley laughs again.

He can do this. Aziraphale will be gone for a few days, but they’re all right.

Everything’s going to be fine. Or else he might off and scream at the fucking moon. Both of them.

* * * *

_Ants,_ O thinks, watching humans scurry around on the monitors. He can see all of the human EEC collectives, north, south, west, and east of the burning M25 motorway. They’re organized humans, he’ll give them that—but those are ants for you.

“Surprised you’re still here. Figured you’d be long gone by now.”

O stiffens and turns around slowly, reaching into his pocket and finding…no weapon. By the time he faces the intruders in his TARDIS, he discovers why.

“That,” he says, “doesn’t belong to you.”

The Celestial the others call Crowley is tossing O’s little toymaker up and down in the air, eying it as if it’s a particularly interesting bauble. The other Celestial, his twin Israfil who decided to be terrifying yesterday, is standing at his side.

“I’ll give you a nudge when I need a lift out of here,” Crowley says to Israfil.

“Good luck,” Israfil replies, and vanishes. No flash of teleportation. No noise. Air doesn’t even rush in to fill the void he left behind, as if there had never been a Celestial standing there at all. It’s impressive, an anomaly of physics, that O would find far more fascinating if he didn’t find these beings nearly as terrifying as the Bad Wolf burped up by the Vortex.

“So, you shrink people to death with this. S’not very nice,” Crowley observes. O twitches at having one of device’s purposes so easily dissected. “Not very sporting, either. Are you worried about what would happen if someone had the chance to fight back?”

“Terrifying the insects gets me faster results, which gets me what I want.”

O suddenly feels the light weight of the device back in his pocket again. He wonders if it still works. “You’ll fit in just fine Downstairs,” Crowley comments, glancing around the TARDIS’s interior. “Interesting choice. Rather like a house instead of a ship.”

“It serves its purpose. I’ve seen no need to change it.”

“Right, yeah.” Crowley takes off his dark sunglasses and stares directly at O. His eyes are entirely serpent, like Israfil in rage-mode, but Crowley’s eyes are gold, not ice blue. “I asked you a question this morning. What the fuck is wrong with your DNA?”

O sneers at him. “And I answered you. I said that I was born with that DNA.”

“Yeah.” Crowley’s eyes narrow. O had no idea anyone who looks so Gallifreyan (or human, but whatever) could also look exactly like a venomous serpent without any shapeshifting involved. “There’s a problem with that, though. You’re carrying around part of _my_ DNA, and there is only one place in the universe it could have come from.”

“I know!” O yells back. “It’s not like that was my doing! I just found out about it a few months ago, and I’m still furious! And why the _hell_ did my ship not vaporize the two of you the moment you breached its security?”

“Because your ship’s consciousness doesn’t have a death wish,” Crowley responds dryly. “Do you?”

O takes a step back. “Not currently.”

“Good man. Time Lord. Gallifreyan. Shobogan. Whatever the hell you’re calling yourself.”

O hates the twist of curiosity that lights up his thoughts. Curiosity is a swift path to a painful regeneration. “How do you know the name Shobogan? It’s ancient. Even I had an interesting time discovering what our people used to call themselves.” He’d thought, like everyone else whose House ruled from the Citadel, that it was just a name claimed by the Outsiders, those wise idiots who rejected their genetic heritage, refused to become Time Lords, and stayed in the Drylands.

Crowley raises an eyebrow, looking far too much like one of the Doctor’s more annoying recent regenerations. “What do you know about Celestials?”

“You’re an old species, you’re myths, and you’re incorporeal. Or…you’re supposed to be, anyway.”

“Being incorporeal is inconvenient if you need to interact with things that aren’t outer space,” Crowley says. “The manufactured meat suits are easier.”

“Manufactured meat suits.” O sort of likes the phrase. It immediately implies horrible things. “Why the quiz?”

“Because, O, Master…” Crowley pauses, head tilted, and then says the Master’s true name. In Gallifreyan.

“Stop that!” O hisses, outraged. “No one is allowed to speak that name! Not even the Doctor!”

“Oh, so it only matters what people do and don’t want to be called if it’s about you, is it?” Crowley’s smile is all sharp edges that uncomfortably remind O of a recent confrontation with a _very_ angry female Doctor. “Time is mine and infinity is my realm, Time Lord, and you’re nothing but a speck of dust within it. I’m the seventh-oldest being in creation aside from Creation Herself, and you know things about my child that I _really_ want to learn.”

“Too bad,” O spits, but anger has always been easy, eager to rise up and flare outwards. He is not_ nothing_, no matter what an arrogant Celestial rolling around in too much of their own sodding myth prefers to believe. It’s almost worse than dealing with the so-called Eternals. “I’m not in a sharing mood.”

“Too bad,” Crowley echoes, and snaps his fingers. There are suddenly other beings in his TARDIS, the other Celestials that have been roaming around this weekend. Six of them—oh. The one who died on Sunday morning seems to be back again.

“Meet the first- through sixth-oldest beings in the universe aside from Herself.” Crowley stares at O with his arms crossed. “Only two of us have kids, but y’know how aunts and uncles are. Bit overprotective. Wanna try that answer again?”

Absolutely not. If O is about to be forced into another regeneration by a bunch of angry Celestials, he isn’t doing it without getting answers. “Tell me where the Timeless Child came from, and I’ll consider it.”

“You don’t know?” Crowley tilts his head and then suddenly lets out a cackling laugh that doesn’t change the stone-faced expressions on the others at all. “Oh, wow. You think we, what, asexually reproduce? That’s hilarious.”

“Two parents might not be required for raising a child, but having one?” Israfil’s expression breaks into sardonic amusement. “It was a bit of a failsafe, that. If you couldn’t find anyone who’d agree to have a child with you, obviously it was a sign that you weren’t yet meant to be a parent.”

“Fine, whatever,” O retorts. “If you’re actually _dad_, then who is mummy, hmm?”

“Mm, no. I started this. You first, O.”

O considers that for a moment. Crowley is like the Doctor; he’ll give in, but not without a concession. It’s annoying. “In the history everyone on Gallifrey is taught, there are three Founders of Gallifrey, the first three Time Lords. Their names are Rassilon, said to be the first Time Lord to regenerate in his quest to become immortal; Omega, a mad scientist even by my standards, who helped Gallifrey’s interstellar travel morph into time travel; and the Other, about which there is almost nothing known at all aside from the fact that they existed…which was exactly the way Rassilon wanted it. If Gallifrey knew the truth, the power Rassilon had gained by ridding Gallifrey of the Pythia—matriarchal, a lot psychic, a lot mad—and replacing her with himself, that bit wouldn’t have gone over so well.”

“But you know who the Other is.” That one is the dark-skinned woman with gold-brushed hair, but her flat, toneless voice keeps trying to give O nightmares. No thanks; no more for him.

“Her name, and eventually _his_ name, was Tecteun, an interstellar Shobogan explorer who found a random girl child seemingly abandoned on an empty world with nothing on it but a great white construct: a platform and building designed to support a high tower that seemed to have no purpose. The only other thing on that world was something Tecteun didn’t yet have a name for—a wormhole.”

Crowley frowns and looks at Michael, the Celestial with gold hair, gold eyes that keep forgetting to have pupils, and that blinding damned armor. “All of the old watchtowers are gone, though, aren’t they?”

Michael nods. “Yes. The last one crumbled tens of thousands of years ago. Most of them have been gone for millennia, destroyed by natural occurrences, the passage of time, or intentional destruction performed by others.”

“Let me guess. Instead of waiting around to see if anyone on the other side of that wormhole might be looking for a kid, this Tecteun took her home with them.” Crowley doesn’t seem to be making guesses, just stating the blatantly obvious. That’s a bit less frustrating than having to spell it out for idiots. “But the child already knew how to regenerate, natural as breathing, and Tecteun decided she wanted that, too. Figuring out how to steal that ability, the kid’s genetic structure, and create Time Lords—that gave them all the power they could ever want, didn’t it?”

“Maybe for a bit,” O says. “I still find it telling that we know about Rassilon, especially since he figured out how to stay dead for millennia, wake up, and start a war. We know about Omega, who went ’round the bend more than I ever have, but the Shobogan who made Time Lords possible? No, not their name. They’re nobody. No one,” he says snidely. “Your turn.”

Crowley plays fair. Of course he does. It’s what he tells O that makes no blasted sense at all. “The Doctor’s mother was a _Time Lord_.”

“She can’t have been.” O glares at Crowley. “Didn’t you hear a word I said? The Doctor isn’t even a proper Time Lord except by right of graduating from the Academy!”

Crowley nods. “Yeah, I heard you, and if I ever find this Rassilon, he probably won’t enjoy the rest of his very brief existence. However, I do know who and _what species_ I was dealing with. The woman who came to me asking a Celestial to grant her a child knew what species she was dealing with, too, but it wasn’t…” His expression twitches. “She wasn’t fulfilling the needs of a fixed point, or making certain something ordained came to pass. She just wanted a kid that wasn’t entirely Gallifreyan. Didn’t blame her, considering she thought her fellow Time Lords were complete fucking wankers.”

O leans back against the edge of console that juts out from the monitors. “Madonna—”

Madonna really is the Doctor’s mother. O is suddenly glad he wasn’t the one to kill her, because he doesn’t need the Doctor to be that angry with him, ever. He isn’t certain what the Celestials would have done to him for that, either. Probably nothing, or probably everything bad.

“She kept the name?” Crowley looks amused.

“I always knew her by that name. Madonna said she’d looked up the history of the name once and thought it was funny, so she used that instead of her Gallifreyan name.” O takes a breath. He’s known the Doctor since they were small, when the Doctor had been the only daughter/child born to Madonna, a girl that the Doctor doesn’t remember being. Madonna went against the laziness of Time Lords and took to traveling through time and space, even though most TARDIS vessels of that era were being mothballed. Madonna always took her daughter with her. She’d been afraid to leave behind someone who was a rumored half-blood on Gallifrey, with its ingrained species prejudices, rather set misogynistic views, and their _ideas_ about procreating.

Then Madonna had been away for much longer than usual. No one really cared, but the Master had. His friend was gone, and gone, and gone, and then suddenly she was back, and no longer a she. The Master’s childhood friend was a boy who’d forgotten him.

The Master forgave the boy who would become the Doctor, because there was no hesitation from that boy, none at all, about renewing their friendship. No hesitation in accepting the Master for who he was, arrogant and maybe a little bit mad. It was nice to have someone around as intelligent as the Master. It was exciting to have someone to pit his mind against, even if it was also _extremely frustrating_ to be competing against someone who was easily distracted, and so bloody lazy when it came to using their intelligence!

Madonna was gone for so long because she had been tracking down the person that three lying, false Founders had forced Madonna’s child to become. O has no idea what Madonna might have said to that mysterious version of the Doctor that would’ve convinced them to regenerate into a child, to believe, utterly (correctly), that Madonna really was their mother.

The Other, Omega, and Rassilon hadn’t been around when the Doctor claimed his name in the Academy, or when the Master claimed his. The Other was said to be dead of old age. O strongly suspects that Rassilon had them assassinated. Omega had long ago gotten himself lost in an anti-matter dimension, and then lost his bloody mind. Rassilon was conveniently dead, even if he’d plotted out his own resurrection before dying. O has wondered, of late, what those three would’ve done if they’d heard that young Academy miscreant claim the name Doctor.

There was protest from the Academy leaders, wasn’t there? O seems to recall something, a declaration that the name was already claimed by another Time Lord. The Master had grinned when the Doctor rightfully pointed out that whoever the previous Doctor had been, they seemed to be a bit too dead to be fussed about someone else using their name.

Not dead, though. Oh, no; not that. The Doctor was just unknowingly reclaiming what was theirs.

“Thanks for the answers, O.”

O jerks his head up. The other Celestials are gone. Only Israfil and Crowley are still present. “What?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Crowley says, and then hesitates. “Actually, there is something you should worry about. This planet is my dominion. Old sense of the word. You know what that means, yeah?”

O scoffs at him. “I know what all the words mean, even if they’re spoken or written in your current rubbish language.”

“Good.” Crowley smiles at him. Except for the superficial alikeness of their features, Crowley doesn’t resemble that previous face of the Doctor’s at all anymore. The expression is too wrong, too bloody terrifying. The Bad Wolf might’ve just been outclassed.

“Don’t let me catch you fucking about with what’s mine, O,” Crowley says. “You wouldn’t like the results very much.” Then he and Israfil are gone.

O stares at the place where they’d been standing. That confrontation hadn’t gone like it should have. _He_ is the smart one. _He_ is the trap-maker, the lingering threat.

His mouth is suddenly too dry. Fear. He doesn’t like fear.

The Doctor is the child of the Celestial embodiment of Time. O can’t decide if that makes him hate her a bit less, or that much more.

The Master thinks he’ll make that decision on a different planet, in a different galaxy, several centuries distant from this one. He could use a break from stupid sodding Earth for a bit, anyway. Not like the Doctor is going to be about for much longer to make it any fun.


	41. Exchanges

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "So, uh, can I hug you? I didn’t enjoy worrying about someone I don’t actually like all that much.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You get a double-feature this weekend because it's alllll about wrapping up in-fic Monday...and that would have made for a *really* long chapter if I'd shoved it all out there in one go. I'm also getting close to being done with TSaTS, but I'm not sure how many chapters are left. You guys'll find out right about when I do. <3
> 
> Cheer-read by @norcumii!

It takes Tina Phillips most of Monday afternoon to locate her target. She finds him in one of Slough’s back alleys a short way from the EEC by following the noise.

Crowley is kicking an empty metal barrel around in a bricked-in alleyway. Tina can’t decide if it’s a good thing the barrel’s empty, or if he’d find it more of a challenge if it was full. “What’s your damage?” she asks.

Crowley gives the barrel one more good, solid kick that dents the side. “It’s not the bloody eighties anymore, Phillips!”

Tina snorts. “Yeah, but you really look the part right now, sir. Where the hell’ve you been, anyway?”

Crowley gives her a look that is all serpent-gold eyes, not even trying for human. “Fucking London!”

“No, today. I saw your arse on the news when your twin dragged you out of everyone’s favorite magical blue box,” Tina says dryly.

“Oh. Just…around,” he replies vaguely. “Most places. I should probably get back to annoying people.”

“You’re good at that.” Tina tilts her head at the dented barrel. “What happened for that poor thing to deserve an extreme version of Kick the Can?”

“Someone fucked with my family,” Crowley mutters, reaching into his tattered jacket to draw out a pair of sunglasses that are in much better condition than his clothes. Tina doesn’t even want to know how many pairs he’s gone through this weekend. “And I can’t do anything about it.”

“That would piss me off, too,” Tina sympathizes. “So, look, I’m back on regular shifts, which meant I got to go home on Sunday after debrief.”

“Oh?” Crowley’s expression is harder to read with the bloody sunglasses in the way, but she saw that lip twitch. “How’d that go, then?”

“You gave me twin girls,” Tina whispers, and suddenly she’s crying and having to wipe her face dry before it gets any worse. “My lease now says I’m allowed two dogs and I have Golden Retriever sisters. We only bargained for one, and you—you—”

Crowley shrugs. “Didn’t want her to get lonely. Do they have names yet?”

Tina sniffs and nods. “They do. Rose and Sophia.”

“Rose and Sophia.” Crowley’s eyebrow rises, visible above his glasses. “‘Golden Girls?’ Really?”

“I admit _nothing_.”

“Too bad. I really like that show,” Crowley replies, grinning at her.

“You are such a complete bastard!” Tina yells. “And I can’t keep yelling at you for it because you’re too fucking nice!”

Crowley leans away from her. “Ugh, don’t call me that. Manners, Phillips! Besides, you’re already yelling.”

Tina wipes her eyes again. “Right. So, uh, can I hug you? I didn’t enjoy worrying about someone I don’t actually like all that much.”

“Hugging.” Crowley acts like he’s thinking over complex physics equations. “Yeah, that can be a thing. Especially given what you named the dogs.”

Tina is abruptly wrapped in too-long, bony limbs. “You smell like London on fire.”

“Trust me, I really don’t. Nobody wanted to know what that smelled like back when it actually happened.” Crowley lets go of her a lot less abruptly than he latched on. “Walk me back? I might get lost, have another go at Kick the Barrel. I hope no one needed that barrel for anything, because I can’t fix that damage right now.”

“Sure.” Tina has to take several steps to catch up before falling into step beside Crowley. The back of his jacket is just as shredded as his denims. Shame; she’d really liked it. “So, who’s your favorite Golden Girl, then?”

Crowley’s answering smile is wide and a bit manic. “Have you ever seen a film called _Lake Placid?_”

* * * *

Nat spits out gum that lost its flavor about three hours ago and rifles through his desk for a new piece. Definitely here somewhere, Seffie stopped by just to make sure he wouldn’t run out during this mess. His hands ripple with blue trying to smother human-colored English paleness until he finds the new pack.

Yes, he’s an addict and he knows it. Humans have cigarettes. He’s got their bloody xylitol. Worse than hypervodka for snagging you, but at least it’s an almost harmless sort of snagging.

“You lot done bickering yet?” Nat asks when he realizes his comm’s gone silent. There are eight de-facto not-really “leaders” of the Network, aside from Nat, who’s just the bloody Operator for the system.

“You’re still in a mood then, aren’t you?”

Nat snorts. Kirst has calmed down a lot since this mess started, mostly because Racnoss started pouring out of the ground. “I’m still pissed off I missed those life signs in Greater London.”

“Nat, baby, Central London isn’t Greater London,” Seffie reminds him, the hum of her ship in the background. “You’ve got good eyes, but that’s a lot of land, and a lot of places to hide. That nutter Crowley fixed it best he could, anyway.”

“Nutter is right,” Nikho says. He’s supposed to be one of the eight on his own, but if his mother, the Lady Numeriana, takes over for a bit, no one complains. She was one of the first London immigrants, so she’s got automatic seniority.

Nat whistles at the number that appears on his screen. “Is any of that compensation for Termin’s family, or is it just for the Network being activated, then helping with the evac?”

“Wait a moment,” Nikho says. Then two different numbers pop up on Nat’s screen. “Sorry. I’d forgotten that the compensation for Termin’s family would be through the British government, not the nutter.”

“S’all right. You lot swap out and get some rest if you can. We have enough taxis in the air right now that the humans can just cope if they’ve got to wait a bit for a lift. I’ll ring the nutter.”

Nat decides on the Torchwood comm signal when he finds Crowley’s ident still broadcasting. It doesn’t have to wait long for Crowley to answer. “Hi, Nat. Something wrong?”

“Thank cats, no,” Nat replies, not liking that his liver tried to flutter at the very thought. This weekend’s just been too bloody much. “I’ve got the negotiated amount the Network wants as compensation for this mess.”

“Aren’t negotiations supposed to involve the party paying the bill?”

“I think they all figured you were a bit busy.” Nat’s life signs detector couldn’t see through the mess of whatever Black Fire is, so he’d been effectively blind to anything happening inside London since Sunday morning. “It was a relief to see you pop out the other side of the M25 by means of that little blue box.”

“I wasn’t conscious for that,” Crowley says. “Granted, pretty sure the others are much more interested in the money. Text me the number, all right?”

Nat picks up his mobile and submits the Network’s requested compensation, then sends a second text that’s meant for the government’s deep pockets on behalf of Termin. “Got it?”

“Yeah.” Crowley whistles, much like Nat had upon seeing the first number. “They’re not fucking around, are they? Not that I much blame them. Putting up with Professor Song probably made most of you twitchy.”

“Only know her by reputation, myself,” Nat says. “The Doctor, too, unfortunately. They’ve got a good reputation. Complete nutter, but a good rep.” Nat almost says something about someone like Crowley having a kid like the Doctor, and squashes the urge. Crowley proved himself a good nutter this weekend, too. Nat doesn’t think he would’ve had the stones to stay in London, even if he’d known about all the kids. It’s not that he doesn’t care. He just knows he would’ve been scared too shitless to be much good for anything except bait.

“You’re still in charge of dispersal, right?”

“Part of the Operator’s job, mate,” Nat confirms.

“Give me your bank account number. Text it using something encrypted. I’ll send it by direct transfer.”

“You’re not going to argue about the amount?” Nat asks. He would have. That is a _lot_ of money.

“Nah. You lot deserve it. Besides, I know this is going to everyone who helped out. I’ll make sure the man who fucking well made me MI5 again gets the information for Termin’s family. I hate that we lost him. I hate that we lost anyone, but…”

“Could’ve been worse, Crowley. There’s a reason why I live here, and it’s not the xylitol.”

“Yeah, but your people weren’t dealing with the planet-eating spiders. Course, the giant scorpions didn’t sound like they were any fun, either.”

Nat picks up his mobile when it chimes an incoming text. That’s his bank account, notifying him that he just received a _massive_ wire transfer. “That makes my bank account look so shiny for all of a single day. Pretty sure my bank thinks I’m Russian mafia or something by now.”

“They’ll treat you like gold just for the suspicion of it, especially right now,” Crowley says. “Might as well enjoy it. Oh, and if you’re gonna kidnap Wilf for coffee, give it a few days, all right? He put in a hard weekend and could use the rest. You can interrogate him over his slap-happy granddaughter later.”

Nat is torn between horror and startled laughter at _the_ Donna Noble being described that way. “Got it. Tell me something cool about MI5 before you ditch them again. I’m really struggling for reasons to stay awake, what with still needing to keep the Network talking.”

“Blowing up Nazis in a church with a misdirected bomb? Very cool,” Crowley says. Nat’s surprised; he really didn’t think Crowley would tell him anything. “Then I got transferred to MI6 and sent to Europe, former employer’s orders. Hated it, but about once a month, everyone MI6 who was on the ground over there chose a pub, met up, and drank ourselves stupid as we swapped stories about all the shit we’d had to get up to.”

Nat grins. “Christopher Lee, huh?”

“That man was terrifyingly metal before metal existed, but he was even better as an actor. Still wish I’d gone to see him before he died, but it would’ve been fucking weird.”

“Yeah,” Nat says, thinking of himself and Seffie, and the weirdness they get just because Seffie doesn’t have a human-identifiable gender. Adding in aliens to the mix, or the fact that Nat’s age in Earth years doesn’t match up with his homeworld, and that he’s going to age slower than his neighbors—it’s like awkward soup waiting to happen. “You take care of yourself, Agent Bond.”

“You just wish you were that cool. Remind me to change the primary and secondary access codes for the Network, but later,” Crowley says, and disconnects.

Nat shakes his head and tunes back into the Network. “Crowley paid it. Didn’t even whinge about the number. I’ll distribute the money tomorrow, after I’ve had a chance to sleep and can do maths again without crying.”

He listens to disbelief, suspicion, and gratitude, all of them pretty much in equal measure, which is typical. They’re all from different galaxies, different cultures. It’s a wonder they manage to work together at all. Makes them feel right at home on Earth, though.

* * * *

Jenn’s having a weird weekend. Well, now it’s a weird Monday, but it’s probably going to stay weird for a while yet. Old Harold and Bessie Sloper stuck with Jenn the moment they realized Jenn’s parents were MEG, and right now, MEG means _really bloody busy_. Their mum and dad both, at different times, stopped by long enough to make sure Jenn was in one piece, scolded them about bringing Francis along—nope, not sorry—and then went right back to work. Jenn hopes their parents sleep at some point, but they’ve been too wired to sleep much, themself, so it’d be a bit like throwing stones to say anything.

St. Albans hasn’t been so bad. Harold and Bessie immediately rated a hotel room because of their age, and since they claimed Jenn as “theirs,” Jenn gets to stay with their unofficial but very cool grandparents. One of the hotel staff was awesome about getting Francis a cat pan with litter and a scoop after asking politely if the kitten was house-trained yet. Jenn had nodded, because Francis was _mostly_ house-trained. At least in a small hotel room, the kitten’s options were kind of limited. There’s just enough floorspace for two double beds, one chair, one dresser-drawer thing with a telly on it, a tiny little open closet space, and an accessible bathroom to make it easier on Bessie and Harold for showering. Then the staff person had asked for Jenn’s favorite color, and Jenn, unthinking, had blurted out “Lime green!” which wasn’t really accurate, but whatever.

Then a lime green collar sized for kittens showed up with the morning newspaper delivery on Monday morning. Attached to it the collar was a darker green tag with _Francis_ engraved on it, along with the number for the new mobile Jenn’s mum had given to them in between MEG duties. Jenn cried a little and then put the collar on Francis, who immediately figured out how to get out of it.

Bessie showed them how to put the collar on tight enough to stay, but not tight enough to hurt Francis. Then she showed Jenn how to put their finger beneath the collar each week, testing for how much bigger Francis had gotten, so they’d know how to adjust the collar proper-like.

Harold had pretended to complain about the kitten ever since he realized Jenn had a ginger furball hiding in their jumper on Sunday morning. Then Jenn caught Harold napping with Francis perched on his chest; Bessie winked at Jenn when they noticed.

Right. Harold had a secret love of cats. Jenn won’t say a word.

Monday, though—aside from them sniffling over a silly gift of a cat collar—is its own stand-out day because that’s when Jenn finds out that their unofficial grandparents’ eldest kid is _really_ important. It’s around about teatime when Harold, Bessie, and Jenn are collected and driven in a golf cart (hilarious) by a uniformed soldier to a tent that’s part of the local EEC’s overflow. The tent has a Union Jack flying on top along with a second flag, red with gold swords crossed over it. Jenn wouldn’t, couldn’t, leave Francis behind by herself, so the kitten is again contentedly riding in Jenn’s jumper pocket, purring against their fingers.

“James!” Bessie cries after they go into the tent. She slowly walks over and embraces the grey-haired bloke in the army uniform who stands next to a table with places set for three.

Oh.

Jenn bites their lip and considers escape options. They don’t know how to get back to the hotel, though.

Harold and Bessie’s oldest kid, the one who’s going to make them great-grandparents in December, spies Jenn after taking his father’s hand and holding it, briefly, with both of his own. “Did I miss a family memo about an adoption?”

Jenn tries not to blush, but it happens anyway. “N-no. Sorry. I can go—”

Bessie draws herself up, affronted. “You’ll do no such thing! James, love, we need another chair. This is Jenn Cain. Their parents are both with the MEG, so they’ve been staying with us.” She pauses. “Is it still ‘they,’ dearie?”

Jenn nods and swallows. “For now. Yeah. Thanks.”

“Good.” Bessie nudges her son, who has a _lot_ of decorations on his army jacket…and general’s stars. Oh, boy. “Come here, then. This should be done properly.”

Jenn shuffles their way forward, cautious, because they hadn’t expected high-ranking army blokes when they talked to two old people on the bus out of London. “This is Sir James Hughes. James, this is Jenn.”

Sir James holds out his hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Jenn stares at that hand like it’s a live viper before they remember to shake it. “Uhm, yeah. Nice t’meet you, too. Your mum an’ dad haven’t really left off on talking about you and Charles and Susan. Wait, why’s it Hughes instead of Sloper?”

Also, why are they shaking a knighted man’s hand? This is terrifying. Help. They’re barely middle class, definitely not the sort that has afternoon tea with knighted soldiers!

Sir James doesn’t seem to mind their question. “My father already had a reputation in military circles. When I joined the service, I didn’t want to feel like I was riding along on his coattails. Hughes is my mother’s maiden name.”

“Oh. That’s pretty cool,” Jenn says, for lack of not being able to think of anything else. Then another chair is added to the tea table, with another plate and glassware and tableware and Jenn’s head might be spinning on its own by now.

Actually having tea helps to make things seem normal. If Jenn ignores the guard standing at the door to the tent, they can just relax into the flow of how Bessie and Harold talk to each other and everyone around them. Sir James seems like a normal bloke, and acts like it, too. It makes Jenn wonder if this is the man’s way of getting to take a breather from all the Military Everything that must be going on right now.

_Or maybe he’s just checking on his parents,_ Jenn thinks, noticing how Sir James is really particular about getting dishes of food for his mum, or lifting pitchers of iced water for his dad.

Francis reaches up with one ginger paw and steals a bit of sausage. Jenn pushes her back down into their jumper pocket. “Mind your manners,” they hiss, but Francis is too busy chewing to care.

Then Sir James stands up again, though he waves for his parents not to. Jenn decides that applies to them, too. “Mister Crowley. I’m glad you could make it.”

“Oh, bollocks to that. If we’re not in front of every bloody important mover and shaker in Britain, please knock off with the formality!”

Jenn twists in their chair in surprise. That’s Israfil—no, it isn’t. His hair is too short and not curly enough, he’s wearing sunglasses, and his clothes look like he saw a bad night in a club.

“I’ll be damned.” Harold and Bessie stand up anyway. Bessie looks so happy she might as well be crying. “Anthony!”

Israfil’s twin—has to be—grins and shakes Harold’s trembling, outstretched hand before he gets hugged by Bessie. “I keep telling you, Harold, you’re not damned!” the Crowley bloke protests, but it’s kind of muffled by Bessie mauling him. “Your son’s a bloody troublemaker, though!”

“You watch your language!” Bessie scolds him. “There are children present.”

Anthony Crowley turns around and looks at Jenn. It should feel threatening, him towering over them, especially with the glasses, but it doesn’t. “You know what all those words mean already, right? You’re like, what, thirteen?”

Jenn nods. “Yeah.”

“And most assuredly a _they_ right now, too. Cool.” Crowley suddenly has a chair that he pulls up to the table, though he makes a face when he sits down, like it hurts or something. Sir James must’ve invited him, but Harold and Bessie are still all but vibrating happiness, so they know Crowley, too. Jenn’s having trouble figuring out how, though, because Crowley looks like he’s thirty-something. Maybe he’s a friend of one of Harold and Bessie’s grandkids?

_You’re thinking too human,_ Jenn reminds themself. _Israfil said they’re extra-dimensional_. Time probably works differently for them or something.

Crowley takes his glasses off and holds out his hand to Jenn. His eyebrows aren’t as dark as Israfil’s, either, and his eyes are sort of gold instead of blue. That’s weird for identical twins, but whatever. “I know who you are,” Crowley says. “My brother met you on Saturday. And your kitten, too, who you seem to have brought to dinner. Against the rules during the evac, wasn’t it? Bringing pets along, I mean.”

Jenn blushes again. “You don’t leave babies behind. They can’t defend themselves.”

Crowley’s expression goes through what looks like three different sorts of heartbreak, making Jenn’s breath catch, before his face smooths out again and leaves Jenn wondering if they imagined it. “Right you are, Anah Jadon Cain. Your name is bloody fascinating, didja know that?”

Jenn stares at him. “You’re doing the weird extra-dimensional psychic thing, aren’t you?”

“Yep.” Crowley pops his Ps, and his accent is all messy compared to Israfil’s, but Jenn thinks maybe they like him—even if he did sort of dig Jenn’s name out of their head.

“I didn’t dig for it, if that’s what you’re afraid of. Sometimes we just know,” Crowley says. “Anah for _answer._ Jadon for _Thankful_. Cain for _Acquired_. A thankful answer acquired. Wonder if your parents did that on purpose, or if they just went with shiny-looking names to go with Cain.”

Jenn blinks a few times. “I’ve got no idea. That was pretty cool, though. I didn’t know any of that. I prefer Jenn, though,” they say, finally remembering to take Crowley’s offered hand.

Crowley shakes their hand like it’s the most normal thing in the world. “Anthony J. Crowley, much prefer Crowley, which you’ve already figured out on your own. If you’re worried about being gender-neutral, Anah and Jadon both are. So’s Cain, really, but I wouldn’t use that one by itself.”

“Good to know.” They still like Jenn, though it’d be nice to use Anah again, eventually, knowing it isn’t just a girl’s name. The way Crowley says it throws off the annoying _Anna_ sound that’s been bothering them for years, like the way their parents say it. Crowley says it _Ah-NAH_, instead, and that feels…better.

“Why is Anthony here? As glad as I am to see the reticent flash bastard—” Harold is saying before Sir James interrupts him.

“I needed to reinvoke Crowley’s status as MI5 for the evacuation.”

Harold actually spits out water. Jenn didn’t think people really did spit-takes in real life. “You did _what?_ After what I had to do just to get the poor man out of it?”

Jenn’s eyes widen. “You’re MI5?” they ask Crowley, who groans and puts his head down on the table like a complete drama queen.

“If you’ll recall, I have a bit more clout than you did at the time. I can retire him out to pasture again,” Sir James says in amusement. “If he wants to be retired again, that is.”

“Yes, please,” Crowley says into the tabletop. “Told you that you took after your mother, you wanker.” Jenn tries not to giggle at how pathetic he sounds, and mostly succeeds.

“I needed warm bodies on the ground who could get things done, Dad,” Sir James explains when Harold still looks totally miffed. “It took a while to get our ducks in a row, even though the ducklings were already running around doing their jobs. I would like to speak to Crowley later about possibly accepting a consultation position, though.”

Crowley lifts his head, chewing on his lower lip. “I’ll think about it. _Maybe_. Depends on what you’ve got in mind.”

“Fair enough,” Sir James agrees.

Things sort of go back to normal after that, but it’s Harold and Crowley who talk to each other the most, not James and Crowley or even Bessie and Crowley. Jenn manages to figure out that Harold and Crowley used to work together in MI5 during the Cold War era. That makes Harold nice, _and_ a badass. Crowley is a not-alien, so he already was one. Even Bessie had a few rounds of spying when her husband encountered groups of female spies that needed infiltrating, which is _so awesome_.

Then tea is over, and Sir James is standing up. Crowley seems to steel himself before he does the same thing. “We’re doing it now?”

Sir James nods. “We have the completed list. I wanted my parents here so I could be certain they would have seats for the event. I know they would…hell, I want them here, Crowley. I don’t want to do this. I just need the last two names for the final deaths in London from you before we go out there. I’ll hand the information off to my aides so that their families can be found and informed properly, as well.”

Jenn winces. They knew some people died, but this sounds like it was after the quarantine. There was something on the news that morning about the last of London’s survivors being rescued by “unusual means.” Whatever that’s supposed to be. They just assumed that everyone got out, because the news acted like they did.

“Warlock Dowling already knows about his father’s oh-so-unfortunate death,” Crowley says, scowling. “Hard for the kid to avoid it when the news had it slathered everywhere before—” He glances down at Jenn and doesn’t say whatever he was thinking of the first time. “—anyway, Warlock knows, and I’m his appointed _in loco parentis_.”

“I don’t even want to know how you ended up as a proxy for the ambassador’s son,” Sir James says after a brief pause. Jenn feels bad for Warlock, but they also think his name is wicked.

“The two London casualties?” Sir James prompts.

“Zeffrey S. Anderson. American, tourist visa, twenty-two years old,” Crowley answers, but he’s not cold about it. Jenn would say he feels kind of raw about the Anderson bloke. “He wasn’t the stubborn one. The kid panicked—had an actual panic attack. In all the mess, nobody noticed that he wasn’t just sitting on his bum on the walk for no reason.”

“Oh, the poor boy,” Bessie murmurs. Jenn feels ill, because if Anderson was in London, then the spider-things they showed on the news got him. Oh, shit.

“Easy there.” Crowley rests one hand on Jenn’s shoulder. They immediately perk up a bit, making them realize they were actually feeling _faint_. Oh, God, that’s so embarrassing!

Crowley squeezes Jenn’s shoulder briefly, and they get this weird sensation that it’s not embarrassing at all. That it’s okay to feel bad about someone dying in an awful way, even if Jenn never met them.

“Thanks,” Jenn whispers. Crowley gives them a brief smile. He’s a lot more like Israfil than they first thought.

“The other was Martin Diggory Braggs. He was the stubborn one.” Crowley sighs and rubs at his forehead. “I was keeping track of him. Braggs held out until sometime this afternoon. He was local, lived in Dulwich Village. Only child, parents deceased, no siblings, no spouse, no kids. Not sure who’s going to turn up at that one’s funeral aside from the priest.”

“Thank you, Anthony.” Jenn almost bristles, but Crowley ignores it when they call him by the wrong name. Maybe it’s just him knowing them for so long, or an old habit he doesn’t mind.

Sir James helps Harold to stand so that he can properly plant his cane on the ground. Crowley is around the table and helping Bessie to stand up, too, before Jenn even realizes he’s moved.

“You’re coming with us,” Bessie says decisively, collecting Jenn by grabbing their hand. Jenn tries not to panic about suddenly being involved in Something Important. “You, too, Anthony.”

“Nnngh. I’d really rather not, thanks,” Crowley protests.

“Anthony, your face is well-known right now to everyone who assisted in the evacuation.” Sir James does look like he regrets what he says next. “It would be odd if you were _not_ present, especially as you will be representing the on-site MI5 volunteers.”

“Fine!” Then Crowley reaches over and taps the wriggling kitten in Jenn’s jumper on her head. “That should calm her down a bit.” He winces a after that and rubs at his temple with one finger. “Keep forgetting,” he mutters, but doesn’t say what it is he’s forgetting about.

“Right.” Not only is Francis purring, she’s fallen asleep. “Thanks.”

Out beyond the tent, a lot closer to that big wall of purple fire than Jenn ever wanted to be, is a stage, already set up with an official-looking podium and a microphone. Chairs are set out in precise-looking rows, occupied by a lot more military blokes in uniforms, and other types in business suits holding phones and notebooks.

Jenn nearly squeaks in terror at the idea of sitting in the midst of _that_ until Crowley drops down into a chair in the back row, crosses his arms and his legs, and possibly puts down roots of Not Going Anywhere. Harold and Bessie choose to sit with Crowley, so Jenn breathes out a sigh of relief and sits there, too. If they’re in the back row, maybe the reporters and cameras arriving—oh, _no_—won’t film them.

The remaining chairs quickly fill with people. Some of them wave at Crowley, who just nods back. Jenn feels a little claustrophobic when more people crowd in around the full rows of chairs, but these people are also potential Camera Shields, so Jenn does their best to ignore them. Instead, Jenn strokes Francis’s tiny purring body and tries not to wince when the microphone at the podium shrieks. Sir James, who is apparently the one about to be speaking, apologizes to the crowd. Then he begins what sounds like a well-rehearsed speech.

Jenn pays attention for a few sentences to realize Sir James is re-summarizing the entire weekend, and then starts daydreaming. They lived through the evacuation. It’s nothing new, and the only good parts about it are sitting beside them.

Then Jenn’s brain picks out the words _honoring the dead,_ and they immediately start paying attention again.

“I have a list of the fallen, carefully compiled by all parties involved in London’s evacuation,” Sir James says. “I would prefer there be no such list at all, but God was merciful in how well the evacuation was managed. I count it another mercy that this list is so short. Thus, it is my sad duty to tell you all of the deaths of Victor Bell, Private, British Army. Elaine Greer, Corporal, British Army. Chester…”

Jenn looks around as the names are being read. Harold and Bessie are holding hands, but neither of them are crying. Stiff upper lip, Jenn supposes. They didn’t bring anything to write with, but that’s okay. The names will be online. They can print it out, or find the names in the newspaper and clip out the article, keep it in their box, keep it safe. Jenn isn’t going to forget the people who helped make sure they lived to be sitting here, as awkward and embarrassing as it is.

Most of the uniformed men and women, and the suited business types, are either dry-eyed or just glistening a bit. Some of the reporters resemble gleeful vultures; others are crying like this is the worst thing that’s ever happened on Earth. Jenn hopes that they didn’t know any of the dead people. This would be such a crap way to find out.

Crowley’s expression is unreadable, but Jenn thinks it’s an intentional mask. He knows all these names already.

* * * *

Lucifer stares at the flaming wall of her creation, separated from it by a human length of steel fencing. She could easily move to the other side, but this is close enough. The first early burst of fire from a star’s birth is not to be fucked with. One of Celestial stock—which she still is, no matter who would argue otherwise—would not be killed by it, but it would certainly vaporize a corporation. It would also injure their true selves. Lucifer is in no hurry to heal from such injuries the slow way, burns that hurt even in the ancient days when Raphael was there to mend the damage. That was long before she’d thought to question, before she’d made assumptions that bore bitter fruit. Now Raphael is returned to them, and trying to find those among her demons that could learn to heal, but belief is powerful. So far, his search has yielded no results, but he does not seem to mind visiting her realm.

Crowley approaches her, but Lucifer doesn’t mind his company. The restored archangel Zaherael has nothing to fear from her, or she from him. Even the demon Crowley had held her respect, even if he’d been unaware of it. He’d been so frightened of her, though. Only in the beginning had memory held true.

Then Armageddon failed to occur. Lucifer waited until Beelzebub gave her the news, and then sent her crafted, giant, “properly demonic” self to a military airport, shattering tarmac and shouting threats at her own child. Crowley was still terrified of him, but he stood with Adam while armed with nothing more than a bloody _tyre iron_. No recollection of who he’d been, and still Crowley would stand before Lucifer to protect his dominion. Still he would protect Adam from Lucifer’s wrath, even if it meant the end of his own existence.

It was the first time in millennia that he’d felt the birds-wing flutter of hope. Not even Adam’s restructuring of reality, denying Lucifer as his father, took that sensation away from her.

Crowley stands at her side, and for a while, both of them do nothing more than watch the wall of fire. “How long until it burns out, do you think?”

“At least another week,” Lucifer answers. “I hope that is enough time for the Racnoss to starve to death.”

“Should be, easily. They’re born starving, and they’re already turning on each other,” Crowley says.

Lucifer glances at him. “You’re certain?”

Crowley taps his ear with one finger. “I can hear them, even at this distance. Pretty sure the moment they realized there were no more tasty human, alien, or Celestial snacks roaming around London, they decided their own sisters were the next best thing. The Empress doesn’t have the age or the strength to control them.”

“At this distance?” Lucifer repeats, curious.

Crowley nods. “I saw it when I was in flight over London while we were searching for the people overlooked in the evacuation. The Racnoss are staying away from the Black Fire barrier. Far away. I don’t know if they remember what it is, or if they didn’t like the example I provided of what happens when you run _into_ that wall, but they won’t go near it.”

“Interesting,” Lucifer murmurs. “Have they already eaten all of the animals that had to be left behind?”

“Don’t think so, actually.” Crowley takes off his sunglasses, his golden eyes gleaming in the gathering twilight. “The Racnoss are strong, so wooden doors, glass—not much of a barrier. But you saw them in London, Lucy. They’re big, even when they’re newly hatched and hungry little horrors. The Racnoss are also bad at opening doors. With them staying in the middle of Greater London, they’re faced with a lot more stone buildings and narrow doors than they’d find out near the M25. Besides, they’re starving. They’re not _thinking_ anymore. The moving, living creature next to them isn’t an ally or a sister anymore. It’s just food.”

Lucifer shivers. That sounds far too much like the first wave of the Fallen, clawing their way out of sulfur pools, wrathful and terrified and turning on each other. At least there had been a lack of cannibalism. “The ones who are strong enough not to succumb will be those who starve, then.”

“Probably.” Crowley slides his glasses back on. “I want to cash in that favor you owe me. For Samael.”

She turns to him in surprise. “Already?”

“Yeah.”

Lucifer inclines her head. “Then ask, Healer.”

“I want Aziraphale to be immune to any weapon created by Heaven or Hell from this point forward, including any incidents that involve displacement to other planes of existence, other dimensions, or time travel. That automatically includes holy water if it’s being used in a weaponized capacity, by the way. Same with hellfire, holy fire—any of it.”

Lucifer stares at him. “If the Principality Aziraphale were ever to Fall, you will have created an unstoppable enemy.”

“Seriously?” Crowley is definitely rolling his eyes at her. “I’m sure that’s what Samael thought, too, but we didn’t defeat him with a weapon from Above or Below. We stopped him with something made the mundane way, right here on Earth. He only died from a holy blade after we’d turned him into the demonic equivalent of a fucking Squib.”

“That is true.” Lucifer closes her eyes and reaches out, feeling for the nebulous potential of what is hers to grant, and what is not. “I cannot give him immunities to both, Healer. You must choose between Heaven or Hell.”

“Hell, then,” Crowley says. “I want that to apply to his corporation, too, not just his true self.”

“Granted.” Lucifer feels the sharp sting of a favor granted, payment bestowed. “As long as his corporation has not suffered an injury that is immediately fatal, or fatal without intervention by a healer, the immunity will hold. His true self will always be immune.”

Lucifer watches Crowley’s shoulders lower. He is concerned about repeated attacks, then, or merely paranoid due to past events. “Okay. Makes me feel better, even if Aziraphale will probably whinge about me doing that. Thanks, Lucy.”

“Of course,” Lucifer replies, because “You’re welcome” does not apply in this situation. “Can I ask you something, Healer?”

“Oh, using my title again. That means it’s serious.” Crowley smiles. “Sure. What is it?”

“Adam.”

Crowley’s smile drops away. “What about him?”

“I—” Lucifer scowls; this should not be so difficult. “While we were together in the bookshop, he ignored me. I did as he silently requested, and did not speak to him unless circumstances forced me to. He is…I do not blame him for his choices. I would not want him to change them. But, I…”

“You wanna talk to your kid.”

Lucifer winces. “I suppose you now understand such a thing very well.”

“A bit, yeah.” Crowley tongues at his corporation’s left upper incisor, a habit she has seen him indulge since she first met him, a newly created seraph greeting one of the Seven archangels. The others had made them nervous. Zaherael had made Lucifer laugh.

“I’ll ask him,” Crowley finally says. “I can’t guarantee anything. Adam’s a good kid, but he’s really protective of his human parents. He might see you wanting to talk as a threat to them, or you wanting to take him away from them—”

“Absolutely not,” Lucifer protests, because that is a_ terrible _idea. Adam might stain his own soul later in his life, but right now, he does not belong in Hell. There is nothing Lucifer could change about her domain that would ever make it a healthy place for a child. “I wouldn’t be able to take him from them, anyway. Adam demanded from reality that I no longer be his father, so I’m not.”

“Yeah, but you’re still—” Crowley breaks off. “Oh. That explains…quite a bit, actually. Human incarnate, but still biologically a seraph even after he sided with humanity.”

Lucifer clenches her hands into fists, feeling claws puncture the skin of her corporation’s palms. “You can’t tell anyone of this.”

“What, that you’re a seraph when you’re female-presenting and a demon when you’re male-presenting?” Crowley snorts. “Not sure anyone would believe me aside from Israfil, especially since that sort of thing has absolutely nothing to do with balance. That sounds more like Mum’s doing.” He frowns. “Y’know, I wasn’t joking when I told that idiot O that we don’t asexually reproduce. Do I even wanna know how you pulled that off?”

“_No,_” Lucifer hisses.

“Thanks, because I actually didn’t want to know. I _never_ want to know,” Crowley says. “I’ll talk to Adam, and text you afterwards. He might need to think it over, though.”

This time, it’s appropriate. “Thank you.”

“No problem. Oh, hey, yeah.” Crowley shoves his hands into his denim pockets. “You might have to slide around in time a bit to pull it off, but someone dies in the fifty-first century who’d make for an excellent replacement of Samael’s seat on the Dark Council.”

Lucifer raises an eyebrow before smiling. Yes, that one. They would do nicely. “Given that their relationship with time is rather loose already, I don’t see that being a difficulty. There is another thing we must discuss, however.”

Light from bright electric overhead lamps are slowly being turned on, one set at a time. The front lenses of Crowley’s glasses turn from black to reflected white. “What’s that?”

“You’ve mentioned nothing of the reparations Hell would owe to the dominion of the Earth for the Dark Woman’s actions.” If Lucifer were in Crowley’s place, she would have claimed those reparations before considering the needs of London. Tenebris Mulierem had caused _everyone_ difficulties in her mad affection for Samael.

Israfil also had the right to demand reparations on behalf of his named dominion of Heaven, but he agrees with Crowley about London’s restoration. All Israfil asked of Lucifer is to think of another way to assist in the city’s reconstruction efforts, one that will soothe the itch of feeling indebted without harming anyone. That absolute bastard asked the Prince of Hell to do a good deed of their own volition, without suggestions or input from another. Thousands of years of being deceased have not dulled Raphael’s ability to be a complete prick.

“You mean Zaazenach.”

“If that is what she chooses to be called upon her return to Hell? Yes.”

Crowley tilts his head. “Y’know, one thing I noticed over the millennia is that whatever evil humanity got up to, whether it was low-grade or clusterfuck levels of vile, the influence of that evil would seep its way Downstairs. Misogyny’s no different. Nobody in Hell gave a fuck about gender until too many humans started to lock onto the idea that females or differently-gendered beings were inferior, or wrong, or something to eradicate. Suddenly the majority of demons started presenting as male. Everyone on the Dark Council except Ba‘al is male or uses male pronouns. You oversee them as male, though you used to not bother considering gender before kicking their heads in if they needed it. Dagon still uses a female corporation, since they always preferred to be considered female, but I haven’t heard Dagon call themselves a woman in a _very_ long time. Even the fucking Leviathan uses male pronouns, and they haven’t bothered with a body since the Fall unless they’re off to go play sea monster!”

“You think I should place Zaazenach on the Dark Council? You have already suggested another for Samael’s seat,” Lucifer says, though Crowley has a point about the, er, prevalence of male-shaped demons in her realm.

Crowley regards Lucifer in silence for a moment. “Ba‘al, First Lord of Hell, greatest of the Dark Council—they’re going to ditch their throne, Lucy.”

Lucifer flinches. “That is not certain.”

“Yeah, it is. Maybe not this week, or this month, or even this year, but it’s gonna happen,” Crowley says. “Not because they don’t love you, because they do. You just don’t have first place in their heart.” He sighs and glances away. “You and I both know that Ba‘al only pledged themself to you and Fell because my brother died.”

“And Zaazenach could take on the role of First Lord of Hell?”

Crowley snorts in amused disbelief. “Lucifer, I dunno how you missed it, but everyone Downstairs is scared fucking shitless of Tenebris Mulierem. Even if she sticks with Zaazenach, it’s not like the others won’t know who they’re dealing with. She might be the _only_ demon who could take Ba‘al’s place on the Council without you having an insurrection on your hands.”

Lucifer frowns. “If I am understanding you correctly, the only reparation you want regarding the actions of Tenebris Mulierem is for Hell to be less sexist.”

“Half of it’s that,” Crowley admits. “The other half means that you and every other lord on the Dark Council is keeping a fucking eye on the crazy bint.”

“Ah.” That makes far more sense, even if Crowley’s other reasons were also logical. “Please tell your siblings to send Zaazenach back to Hell by way of a telephone call. I would like to see this potential for myself as soon as possible.”

Crowley nods. “You heading back Downstairs?”

“It has become obvious that I am no longer needed for this endeavor. Not directly, at any rate. I’ve already sent Maghunta and her hunting pack back to Hell. If you would be so kind as to dial Belphegor’s number on your mobile, he is already expecting my return.”

“That’s not a kindness. That’s me feeling like you’ve contaminated my mobile,” Crowley grumbles, but it appears he still has the other lord’s number stored in his contact list. “Don’t shoot the fucking messenger,” he snaps in response to whatever greeting he receives from Belphegor. “Your boss is coming back. Might want to get out of her way.”

Lucifer smiles in amusement. Belphegor absolutely despises Crowley, and the feeling has always been mutual. “Until we meet again, Healer.”

“See ya, Lucy.”

Lucifer pauses before she uses the mobile’s signal to return to the right time and place within her domain. “I’ve been curious. You were most certainly demonic during your trial.” Left unsaid is what Lucifer already told him—no one informed Lucifer of the trial until it was ended, to her absolute fury. That sort of blunder will not ever be repeated. “How did you survive the holy water?”

Crowley nudges his glasses down until he can peer over the rims at her, wide smirk on his face. “That’d be telling, now, wouldn’t it?”

* * * *

The Doctor had time for about six words with her dad after both of her younger selves were gone, and then it was off to the madhouse. Multiple madhouses. They’re back down to one TARDIS again, and some of these people need to be moved about quickly. The aliens with ships that don’t look like threats are helping, but it’s still a bit much. She puts her foot down when even the TARDIS starts protesting being used as a free taxi for too many uniformed types.

She finds Crowley again at eight o’clock that evening after a bit of a search. He’s back in the East EEC for South Ockendon, which is a bit frustrating. It feels like she’s been mentally tracking him all around the outside of the M25 today, and yet here he is, right where he started from this morning.

Well, sort of. Instead of a recovery tent, Crowley’s in the obstetrics-pediatrics tent. Babies don’t stop being born just because of an evacuation, and this one has ten brand new little ones inside.

Crowley has the safety screen open for incubator number eleven, picking up a white-swaddled month-old infant resting inside the heated chamber. Is it still called an incubator if the baby isn’t a newborn? The Doctor can’t remember. Humans keep changing the names of the same devices so often that it makes her want to hug the TARDIS’s telepathic translation circuit.

The Doctor catches a glimpse of Crowley’s smile. He looks a bit like a besotted father. “Hello, little Phoenix.”

“The baby someone was daft enough to leave behind in London?” the Doctor asks, stepping forward to peer at the infant. She didn’t get a good look earlier. Blue eyes that might turn out to be any sort of color, ginger fluff for hair and eyelashes, and darker bronze skin. Used to be it was quite a search to find a ginger with dark skin on Earth, but humans are getting out and about so much on their own planet now. It’s not so difficult anymore. Besides: when in doubt, check the internet.

“Daft is the wrong word entirely, Doctor,” Crowley murmurs, shifting the baby into a proper carry for an infant that still doesn’t have the strength to lift their own head. “More like someone I want to introduce to Lucy.”

“Oh. That bad, huh?”

“Yep. That bad. Phoenix got lucky.” Crowley takes a deep breath with his nose pressed against the baby’s soft hair. “I’d have liked to have done this, y’know.”

The Doctor has to translate that, because it’s sort of become a foreign idea, having parents, even after finally meeting her dad. “For me?”

Crowley nods. “Yeah. Even if it was just the once.” Then he straightens up, holding the baby against his chest. “My car’s in Sheffield. Can I bum a ride off you?”

“Sure. I’ve been ferryin’ people all around the EECs, and Donna wants a lift to the fifty-first century to find out if her sort-of-husband remembers her, and—wait. With the baby?” the Doctor asks in disbelief. “But she—”

“Has no one,” Crowley finishes softly. “She was discarded like rubbish, Jane. She’s a healthy infant who was taken care of like it was a sporadic chore and then left behind to become Racnoss food. If I find her family and there’s someone decent among them, then things will change, but right now? She’s got me. Not exactly the first time I’ve had to look after a kid for a bit. Never could do it long-term, mind, but…” He shakes off what the Doctor senses is a bittersweet memory, one preceded by despairing anger and possibly a _lot_ of alcohol. “I need to visit a specific cottage in Tadfield. The news has been screaming about the American ambassador’s ‘brave’ death during London’s evac, but his kid deserved better than to find out by fucking telly.”

The Doctor rifles through her brain to make sure she’s remembering the events and names proper. “Harriet Dowling—how’s she doing?” she asks, leading the way to her TARDIS. Given how well her girl and Crowley are getting on, she won’t even need to ask for directions to this Tadfield cottage. The TARDIS will just know.

“Israfil says she’s moved down from catatonic to completely traumatized. Harriet’s head wasn’t built for watching an alien spider-centaur slaughter her husband, a lineup of soldiers, and a camera crew in the time it takes for someone to whinge about having to clean a litter tray.” Crowley doesn’t sound all that concerned about her, and what with him being a Healer, that’s ringing alarm bells for the Doctor. “Harriet won’t be capable of looking after a kid for a while yet. Not that she really looked after him in the first place.”

_Oh,_ the Doctor realizes. “So I’m helpin’ you to start up a collection of orphans, then?”

Crowley snorts. “Not like it’s the first time I’ve done that, either.”

* * * *

Anathema opens the door, unsurprised to see Crowley standing there. It’s Monday evening, London has been empty of humans and idiot angels since morning, and it’s really about fucking time. Her house should have been kid-free already, but Adam _convinced_ everyone that since Warlock’s dad died, and the television wouldn’t stop yapping about it, that maybe Warlock Dowling needed friends more than the Them needed to go back to school.

Feeling guilty about how much she’d wanted her house empty of children, Anathema agreed to another day of madness. Warlock didn’t seem too broken up about the news about his father, but grief can do strange things to people. Her mother had seemed perfectly fine and normal for an entire week after Anathema’s father died right until she suddenly wasn’t.

Then Anathema spies what’s cradled in Crowley’s arms. “You’re not bringing me more children, are you?”

Crowley lifts his glasses to give her a disgruntled look. “Am I—no! Well, not unless you and the salamander are looking to adopt, Book Girl.”

“Diapers,” Anathema squeaks, because please, God, no diapers! She is a witch who faced down Armageddon, but she has limits!

The idea of diapers is so distracting that Anathema doesn’t even remember to testily remind Crowley that Newt Pulsifer has a name, and that name is not _salamander_. Even if Newt will admit (quietly, when there aren’t any angels around) that he sort of thinks it’s funny.

Crowley raises an eyebrow. “Right. So, behind me is the Doctor.”

Anathema peers around Crowley, who doesn’t seem to understand that he blocks doorways, and spies a much shorter blonde woman in a long grey hooded coat standing behind him. Rainbow shirt, blue culottes, combat boots. Anathema’s California-raised brain approves at once. “Hello.”

“Hallo!” the woman called the Doctor responds, waving and smiling. “Love the place you have here. Love the energy. Ooh, I smell actual jasmine! Izzat why it’s called Jasmine Cottage?”

“Uh—I just rent here,” Anathema stutters. “Wait, uh, come in, both of you.”

The moment Anathema closes the door, Warlock and the Them all but fall down the stairs to find out what’s going on. Warlock spies Crowley, makes a strangled noise, and lunges for him. He wraps his arms around Crowley’s waist, buries his face against Crowley’s stomach, and makes another horrible noise that brings the guilt back.

She’d taught the kid little bits of witchcraft here and there over the weekend, and she’d still been more concerned about having her house to herself again. She’s probably a terrible person.

Crowley wraps his free arm around Warlock and glances at Anathema. She immediately feels a bit less guilty, recognizing that she’d been thoughtless, not awful. She hasn’t had to deal with grieving people aside from Mom and herself since her dad’s funeral. Anathema doesn’t even know how British people _handle_ grief and funerals. Is it all stiff-upper-lip? Is it a wailing disaster? She has no idea. Warlock is an English-American hybrid who’s never attended a funeral that wasn’t a State Function, so he doesn’t know, either.

“Crowley!” the Them chime in.

“You’re back!” Brian shouts.

“You’re not dead!” Pepper exclaims.

“Your clothes look very metal,” Wensleydale observes politely, revealing what he’s already picked up from Warlock.

Adam just gives Crowley a long, silent stare that Crowley returns. Whatever it is they’re doing, Adam nods when it’s done, looking relieved and satisfied.

Anathema sighs. This is what she gets for continuing to hang out with celestial beings.

“It’s okay, hellspawn,” Crowley whispers at Warlock, who somehow manages to cling tighter. “D’you want to stay, or come up to Sheffield with me? Got a room with your name on it, if you want.”

“Sheffield,” Warlock says. It’s probably an actual miracle that makes him audible. “I mean, I wanna see the Them again, soon as I can, but it’s a school week and Anathema is tired and I think Newt might be having a nervous breakdown—”

“I really don’t think Newt’s ever stopped having one of those,” Crowley mutters. Anathema lets out a startled giggle and tries not to let on how much she agrees with Crowley. Newt is amazing, a perfect complement of normalcy to her weirdness in so many ways, but he’s also a complete disaster. It’s cute.

“Do you want to see your mother, hellspawn?” Crowley asks Warlock.

“Hellspawn?” the Doctor repeats silently, looking bemused. Anathema shrugs at her, feeling like she’s found a kindred soul, because she doesn’t get the hellspawn thing, either.

“Don’t care about her. Care about you. You were stuck in London with those _things,_” Warlock mumbles. “We knew when you got out, but that was still another entire day and night, Nanny!”

“And I’m fine now, yeah?” Crowley looks at Anathema again. “That was on the news?”

“Everything happening around the M25 right now is news, Crowley,” Anathema says, dry as she can manage. “Especially when a blue box appears out of nowhere and ejects a lot more people than a box that size is supposed to hold. Besides, you and Israfil are kind of obvious, even from a helicopter.” That had been worth being dragged over to Pepper’s house that afternoon—getting to see that everyone was safe.

Well, Aziraphale hadn’t been captured on camera, but Crowley doesn’t seem upset. Aziraphale must be fine.

“Blue box!” The Doctor grins again. “That would’a been me. You’re Anathema Device, right? Love the name, very different, very you.”

“She’s one of them aliens I was tellin’ you about,” Adam says.

Anathema stares at the Doctor. “You look human.” Her aura is weird and self-contained, with a faint overlay of something that looks sort of like robes, but otherwise she looks entirely human.

The Doctor shrugs. “You look Celestial. Or Time Lord. Or Bathmassian. Actually, there are a lot of people in the universe who look us-shaped.”

“That’s…” Anathema closes her unhinged mouth. “Okay, that’s a good point.” She hadn’t really thought about Crowley, Aziraphale, and Israfil that way before. There’s a lot of Biblical theory floating around about angels being massive beings larger than stars, among other things. Crowley had laughed himself onto the floor when Anathema mentioned the eldritch horror theory, saying that one was his fault, and it hasn’t stopped being funny even after six hundred years.

“Then Enochian…” She’d trailed off, giving her angelic guests an expectant look.

“That poor man really should have stayed away from the hallucinogenic plants.” Aziraphale had continued to look prim, proper, and innocent while Crowley arched an eyebrow and stared at him with a knowing smirk.

Mostly, though, Anathema is frustrated that she has an actual alien standing in her house, and she has no idea what to say. This is totally not fair. If Crowley had _warned her_, Anathema might be capable of something more than blank staring!

Crowley is the one who takes charge, because children are involved. “Right, you lot! Sleepover’s done with for this week, the four of you need to get yourselves home before the suggestions wear off and your parents ground you for the next decade.” The Them make the obligatory complaints of kids being kept away from the fun stuff, but they do start to pack up everything they’ve scattered all over Anathema and Newt’s living room. “Anathema: thank you.”

Anathema has to blink a few times. Crowley really doesn’t say that very often. “You’re…welcome?”

Crowley jerks his head back in such a way that his sunglasses slide back into place, shielding his eyes again. “C’mon, hellspawn. Time to go for a ride. Oh, and your two guards are gone. No need to worry about running into either of them,” Crowley adds.

Anathema nods, more out of habit than anything else. “Okay. You, uh…you guys can visit again. Really. I don’t…we don’t mind,” she adds, even though Newt literally passed out in a chair upstairs after dealing with the constant barrage of Children Everywhere.

Crowley smirks at her, just a twitch of his lips, not the full-blown look of pleased disbelief he’d given Aziraphale. “Might take you up on that, Book Girl. Say hi to the salamander for me.”

“It’s _Newt!_” Anathema finally rallies, but Crowley is already escorting Warlock out of the house.

The Doctor is still looking around. “You can lease places like this? Really?”

“Yeah. It, er, costs…it’s a lot of money per month. But yeah, you can. There are a lot of old cottages up for rent if you know where to look.”

“Fantastic.” The Doctor grins at Anathema again. “Nice meeting you. Ta!”

Anathema waves after them and leans against her doorway, watching as everyone disappears into a blue box that’s not much larger than a fucking phone booth. It has to be bigger on the inside, which is either magic, miracles, or science so advanced it would make everyone on Earth with a physics doctorate cry.

The ship’s departure is the odd noise Anathema had heard earlier. She’d just chucked up the weird winding-grind to their invisible guards outside. Their voices had occasionally floated near enough to the kitchen window; their last discussion had been about who made better coffee, and how hard was it to have a bloody coffee machine Downstairs, anyway?

_Aliens are real,_ Anathema thinks again. The resulting squeal of joy wakes up Newt, who falls out of his chair, interrupting the lovely dream he’d been having about the benefits of vasectomies.

**Author's Note:**

> I lurk on Tumblr @deadcatwithaflamethrower

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Mercy Is Fallen](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25456642) by [Morgyn Leri (morgynleri)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/morgynleri/pseuds/Morgyn%20Leri)


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